Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa named each other in their wills

USA Today

15-03-2025

Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa named each other in their wills
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Death timeline of Gene Hackman, wife
Gene Hackman and his wife died a week apart and from entirely different causes. No foul play is suspected in the deaths.
Details of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa's wills reveal they each wanted to leave their estates to each other.
In Hackman's will — obtained by USA TODAY from his probate case in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Friday — the Oscar-winning actor named Arakawa (referred to in the document as Betsy Arakawa Hackman) as the personal representative of his estate and the recipient of his "entire estate" in her role as the successor trustee of the Gene Hackman Living Trust.
Arakawa's will details that her estate would go to the trustee for Hackman's trust, should her husband outlive her.
Both estates will now go into a trust. Without trust documents, it is unclear how Hackman's assets will be divided and among whom.
"Whomever acts as trustee will be bound by the actual terms of the decedents' trust documents and shouldn't be able to influence the distribution of assets. It will be the trustee's job to simply carry out the terms of the trust," says San Diego estate attorney and certified public accountant Michael P. McCarthy, who is not affiliated with the case. "Normally this is done privately and without formal court supervision."
Hackman also appointed "the remainder of the trust estate" of a separate trust that dates back to September 1994, called the GeBe Revocable Trust, in Arakawa's favor.
The will, dated June 7, 2005, also notes he has three children from his prior marriage to Faye Maltese: Christopher Hackman, Elizabeth Hackman and Leslie Allen.
The Daily Mail was first to report on the couple's wills.
Hackman and Arakawa were found dead last month in their Santa Fe, New Mexico home. Arakawa, 65, died from Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare disease that is contracted by contact with mouse droppings. And Hackman, 95, had heart disease and complications caused by Alzheimer's disease and died from natural causes.
Arakawa died on Feb. 11 and Hackman died a week later, investigators said.
A mask, a cane and a frantic dog: Inside the final hours of Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa
Who is in charge of Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa's estate now?
Julia L. Peters, who was named as the second successor personal representative of Hackman's estate, took over the duties as Arakawa and the first successor, attorney Michael G. Sutin, are both deceased.
A successor trustee, per Cornell Law School, is someone who assumes responsibility of managing a living trust property in the case that the original trustee dies or becomes incapacitated. A personal representative, meanwhile, is in charge of the decedent's estate and pays debts and taxes, collects assets and distributes the remaining property to heirs or beneficiaries as designated in the decedent's will.
Santa Fe district court documents reviewed by USA TODAY show Julia Peters, who works for a Santa Fe-based trust company, has been appointed the personal representative of both Hackman's and Arakawa's estates following the couple's deaths last month.
In an application filed March 6, Peters asked the court to informally admit Hackman's will to probate and informally appoint her as his personal representative. A First Judicial District Court judge approved the application that same day.
Who is in Gene Hackman's trust?
On March 7, notice of Peters' appointment as Hackman's personal representative was mailed out to his three children.
Peters noted in a March 13 petition to the court that "there are trust assets to be administered in both the GeBe Revocable Trust and the Gene Hackman Living Trust," and that the GeBe trust "passes through the Will of Gene Hackman to the Gene Hackman Living Trust."
The latter "contains mainly out-of-state beneficiaries," per her court filing.
She also wrote, "After specific bequests to (Hackman's) identified beneficiaries," the rest of his trust will be "distributed in accordance with the desires of Gene Hackman as expressed in the trust document."
The trust has not been made public.
Betsy Arakawa's will left her estate to Gene Hackman
Meanwhile, Arakawa's will — dated, like Hackman's, to September 2005 — details what she wanted to be done with her estate.
After all expenses and debts are paid upon her death, she wrote, her "tangible personal property" is to be given to designated people in a list that is separate from her will. Then the "residue" of her estate would go to the trustee for Hackman's trust, should her husband outlive her.
Arakawa stipulated that if her husband died before her, a personal representative should put the remainder of her estate — funds that were not used toward paying for various costs and debts — in a charitable trust. The trust would "achieve purposes beneficial to the community, consistent with the charitable preferences and interests expressed or indicated by my spouse and me during our lifetimes."
She named Hackman as her personal representative, with Sutin and Peters as alternates. There is also a caveat in her will that names the terms of "simultaneous death and survivorship" when it comes to beneficiaries. This section states, "No person will be deemed to have survived me if the person dies within 90 days of my death."
Peters is also the personal representative in Arakawa's probate case. In one of her court filings, she names Arakawa's mother as the sole heir.