For Gene Hackman, a Jarring End to a Quiet, Art-Filled Life in Santa Fe

New York Times

28-02-2025

Years after Gene Hackman retired from acting, he was at dinner with a friend in New Mexico who wanted to know how actors were able to cry on cue.
'He put his head down at the table for about 30 seconds and raised his head up and there are tears coming down,' the friend, Doug Lanham, recalled. 'He looked at me and goes, 'How do you like that?''
After a long career in movies that won him two Oscars and the admiration of generations of film lovers, Mr. Hackman left Hollywood behind for Santa Fe, where he spent his final decades enjoying its striking scenery, trying his hand at painting and writing novels while living what appeared to be a quiet but full life with his wife, Betsy Arakawa.
He played an active role in the city's civic and social life during his early years there before slowing down and growing a bit more reclusive as he entered his late 80s and then his 90s, friends said. Some had been expecting to get word of his death from Ms. Arakawa one of these days.
So it was shocking for them to learn this week that Mr. Hackman, 95, had been found dead in the mud room of his home in Santa Fe and that Ms. Arakawa, 65, had been found dead in a bathroom near an open prescription bottle and scattered pills. One of the couple's dogs, a German shepherd, was found dead in a nearby closet.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating after finding the bodies on Wednesday, said that there were no signs of foul play but that it could not yet say what had caused their deaths.
It was a jarring end to Mr. Hackman's post-Hollywood life, one characterized by a deep involvement in Santa Fe's artistic community as a painter and writer and later by a more insular life with Ms. Arakawa and their dogs in a secluded neighborhood looking out onto the mountains. The couple's two-story home is ensconced in trees, providing privacy from nearby homes and the winding neighborhood roads.
Today, some of his paintings — including landscapes and portraits and a brightly colored scene of women lounging by blue and green waves — can be seen in a Santa Fe restaurant called Jinja, which he and Ms. Arakawa had invested in.
He served on the board of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, one of Santa Fe's main cultural destinations, for about seven years, and called the museum a reminder 'of the striking beauty of this land and the way she saw it' when he spoke at the museum's opening in 1997.
'In the 10 years I've lived here, I've been taken with the excitement and indomitable spirit of this place,' Mr. Hackman said at the opening, according to an account in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Mr. Hackman's life in Santa Fe began in the late 1980s, shortly after his first marriage ended in divorce. He was drawn to the area after filming there, and he eventually became a part of the city's vibrant artistic circles.
'It was wonderful camaraderie,' said Susan Contreras, a local painter whose husband, Elias Rivera, would host artists, including Mr. Hackman, for painting and drawing sessions in his studio.
He had distinct views about how things should look. An Architectural Digest article from 1990 about a property he bought near Santa Fe described how he worked to demolish the existing home and commissioned architects to design a new one for him and Ms. Arakawa. 'He occasionally mixed colors on his own palette to show the workmen precisely what he wanted,' the article said
The couple married in 1991, the same year she graduated with a master's degree in liberal arts from St. John's College in New Mexico.
Locals grew used to seeing Mr. Hackman around town, Mr. Lanham said, though there would sometimes be paparazzi or the odd person following him around a grocery store.
With his friends, he tended to be self-effacing and open to any questions about his past, they said. One longtime friend, Tom Allin, said Mr. Hackman would tell a story about a time before movie stardom, when he got a job that required him to dress up as a toy soldier outside F.A.O. Schwarz in New York around Christmastime.
He was standing on the sidewalk in costume — red-circled cheeks and all — when his old drill sergeant from the Marine Corps passed by. Mr. Hackman tried to dodge the sergeant, as the story goes, but he was recognized and his old drill sergeant barked, 'Hackman! I knew you'd never amount' to anything.
He undoubtedly did amount to something. But after a four-decade career he quietly withdrew from acting, telling an interviewer in 2008 that he did not want to risk 'going out on a real sour note.'
As his Hollywood years faded, Mr. Hackman focused more of his energy on writing, teaming up with a friend, Daniel Lenihan, to write novels. The pair wrote several books together, including a Civil War novel about a Union officer's escape from a Confederate prison camp and a 19th-century sea adventure novel.
'He was pretty intense about everything he did, and he liked to do it right,' Mr. Lenihan said.
Mr. Lenihan's wife, Barbara Lenihan, started a home décor business in Santa Fe with Ms. Arakawa, offering designer bedding and other kinds of textiles.
Friends described Ms. Arakawa as Mr. Hackman's fierce protector, especially as he grew older. In 2012, after Mr. Hackman was struck by a car while biking, Ms. Arakawa dressed up as a nurse to get in and out of a hospital without attracting the attention of photographers, Mr. Allin recalled.
He said the couple had a hand signal that Mr. Hackman would use if he needed to get out of an uncomfortable conversation with a fan. Ms. Arakawa was intent on keeping him eating healthy, and his friends recalled him sneaking the occasional muffin or cinnamon bun when she was not there.
'He said many times that he would have been dead without Betsy,' Mr. Allin said, who noted that in recent years he typically communicated with Mr. Hackman through his wife because he did not think Mr. Hackman had a cellphone or email address.
After Mr. Allin and his wife moved out of New Mexico, Mr. Hackman gave them a painting he made of a pinyon pine among some shrubs in front of a pastel purple mountain range. 'Tesuque's calling,' Mr. Hackman wrote, referring to his old neighborhood north of Santa Fe.
He was urging his friends to return.