Who was Betsy Arakawa, Gene Hackman's wife?
The Brief
Actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home alongside their dog.
Foul play is not suspected at this time.
Gene Hackman, the Oscar-winning actor known for his performances in "The French Connection" and "Unforgiven," was found dead along with his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, and their dog in their Santa Fe home, officials said.
Hackman was 95 and Arakawa was 63.
RELATED: Gene Hackman, wife Betsy Arakawa found dead in Santa Fe home: What we know
What we know
The Santa Fe County Sheriff's office confirmed the death to FOX News Digital early on Thursday morning.
"On February 26, 2025, at approximately 1:45 p.m., Santa Fe County Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to an address on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park where Gene Hackman, 95, and his wife Betsy Arakawa, 64, and a dog were found deceased," the statement said.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza originally told the Santa Fe New Mexican that at the time of the initial report they were conducting a preliminary death investigation.
"All I can say is that we're in the middle of a preliminary death investigation, waiting on approval of a search warrant," the sheriff said Wednesday evening, before his agency had positively identified the pair.
What we don't know
The sheriff's office confirmed that foul play is not suspected as a factor in the deaths at this time, but the cause of death has not been determined.
The backstory
Arakawa, born in Hawaii in the 1960s, was a purposely private person who first met Hackman while she was working part-time at a fitness center in the mid-'80s, according to The New York Times.
Arakawa was also a classical pianist, according to The New York Post.
The two moved into a home in Santa Fe in the mid-80s as well, though Hackman told the Florida Sun-Sentinel that he did not abandon his first wife, Faye Maltese, for Arakawa. Maltese and Hackman were married for 30 years and divorced in 1986. Hackman and Arakawa were married in 1991.
According to People, When Hackman retired from acting in the mid-2000s, he became an author, a trade that Arakawa helped him with as he published at least five books, including Wake of the Perdido Star and Payback at Morning Peak.
Arakawa didn't have any children with Hackman. She was, however, a stepmother to the three children he had through his previous marriage – Christopher, Elizabeth Jean and Leslie Anne.
According to Hackman's bio with Simon & Schuster, the couple had two German shepherds.
The Source
This report includes information from Fox News Digital, The New York Times, The New York Post, People and Simon & Schuster. FOX's Kelly Hayes contributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
2 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Biblioracle: Jess Walter's latest novel, ‘So Far Gone,' has echoes from his earlier books
Jess Walter, author of the just about to be released 'So Far Gone,' is one of my favorite contemporary novelists. He's been something of a shapeshifter over the course of his career, first establishing himself as a crime writer, including in the Edgar Award-winning 'Citizen Vince.' 'The Zero,' from 2006, uses Walter's base in crime fiction set against the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the service of a kind of hybrid noir that, through the lens of one character, brilliantly captures our collective disorientation in those first weeks and months post-attack. 'The Financial Lives of Poets' (2009) is a medium-dark domestic comedy about a journalist who (sort of) turns to crime to make ends meet as his profession collapses around him. 'Beautiful Ruins' (2013) is my favorite of Walter's novels, a sprawling tale across time, the 1960s to the present, and place, the glamour of Italy and the glitz of Hollywood. 'The Cold Millions' (2020) explores nascent labor activism in the logging industry of the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the 20th century. The DNA of 'So Far Gone' has elements from across Walter's oeuvre. Like 'The Financial Lives of the Poets,' the central character, Rhys Kinnick, is a journalist who has left the profession, retreating from it and his family to a hermit-like life on some ancestral family land in a cold-water cabin in Washington state. Rhys is drawn back to the world when his 9-year-old and 14-year-old grandchildren (Asher and Leah) are brought to his door and he finds out his daughter, Bethany, has gone missing. Rhys has retreated because his profession, his marriage and his relationship with Bethany all appeared dead, the separation kicked off by Rhys punching Bethany's increasingly devout, increasingly radical second husband (and Leah's father), Shane, in the face over political stances entirely divorced from reality. Rhys thinks he's a failure, a drag on his loved ones. Bethany feels as though he's abandoned his family. This psychological baggage and the way it defines the characters are the center of the novel. Rhys brings the kids to what is supposed to be Asher's junior chess tournament, but quickly loses his grandchildren when they are confronted by members of the Army of the Lord, a radical sect to which Shane sort of belongs. Rhys now needs help, bringing him back into the lives of others. Walter taps into his crime origins to bring us his penchant for snappy dialogue and expert quick establishment of these secondary characters, including Lucy — once Rhys' girlfriend just before and just post-divorce, and still an editor at the paper Rhys left — and Chuck, Lucy's ex-boyfriend and an ex-cop who is looking to get back into Lucy's good graces while also having a particular enmity toward the Army of the Lord. The story careens on from there as different characters are lost and then found throughout. This is, as expected, a very well-done novel. Rhys is winning and interesting even in the midst of a pathetic moment. Walter delves straight into strange territory, asking how some significant portion of people can choose to detach themselves from reality in the name of trying to find solace in a hostile world. There are laugh-out-loud moments of comedy and dark incidents of violence. It's not clear why, ultimately, I wasn't more satisfied by this book. I think it's me, and these times. Walter is trying to paint a route through what seems to be a kind of collective madness to reconnection and a return to community and dignity. It's a story I want to be true. But right now, I don't trust it. I hope someday it does come true. John Warner is the author of books including 'More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.' You can find him at Book recommendations from the Biblioracle John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you've read. 1. 'Antarctica' by Claire Keegan 2. 'Dream State' by Eric Puchner 3. 'Table for Two' by Amor Towles 4. 'Just Mercy' by Bryan Stevenson 5. 'Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets' by Burkhard Bilger'Eat the Document' by Dana Spiotta is a great character study rooted in two eras simultaneously, late '60s early '70s political radicals, and the suburbs of the 1990s. 1. 'Middle of the Night' by Riley Sager 2. 'Think Twice' by Harlan Coben 3. 'The Quiet Librarian' by Allen Eskens 4. 'James' by Percival Everett 5. 'Presumed Guilty' by Scott TurowAnybody who looks like they enjoy a good twisty thriller is a good candidate for one of my favorites of the last several years, 'Who Is Maud Dixon?' by Alexandra Andrews. 1. 'The Sympathizer' by Viet Thanh Nguyen 2. 'Crazy Brave' by Joy Harjo 3. 'Parable of the Sower; Parable of the Talents' by Octavia E. Butler 4. 'Braiding Sweetgrass' by Robin Wall Kimmerer 5. 'Born to Run' by Bruce SpringsteenI think Adele is a great candidate for Lorrie Moore's strange and powerful 'I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home.' Get a reading from the Biblioracle Send a list of the last five books you've read and your hometown to biblioracle@
6 hours ago
How groundbreaking gay author Edmund White paved the way for other writers
NEW YORK -- Andrew Sean Greer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, remembers the first time he read Edmund White. It was the summer of 1989, he was beginning his second year at Brown University and he had just come out. Having learned that White would be teaching at Brown, he found a copy of White's celebrated coming-of-age novel, 'A Boy's Own Story.' 'I'd never read anything like it — nobody had — and what strikes me looking back is the lack of shame or self-hatred or misery that imbued so many other gay male works of fiction of that time,' says Greer, whose 'Less' won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2018. "I, of course, did not know then I was reading a truly important literary work. All I knew is I wanted to read more. 'Reading was all we had in those days — the private, unshared experience that could help you explore your private life," he said. "Ed invented so many of us." White, a pioneer of contemporary gay literature, died this week at age 85. He left behind such widely read works as 'A Boy's Own Story' and 'The Beautiful Room Is Empty' and a gift to countless younger writers: Validation of their lives, the discovery of themselves through the stories of others. Greer and other authors speak of White's work as more than just an influence, but as a rite of passage: "How a queer man might begin to question all of the deeply held, deeply religious, deeply American assumptions about desire, love, and sex — who is entitled to have it, how it must be had, what it looks like,' says Robert Jones Jr., whose novel above love between two enslaved men, ' The Prophets,' was a National Book Award finalist in 2021. Jones remembers being a teenager in the 1980s when he read 'A Boy's Own Story." He found the book at a store in a gay neighborhood in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, 'the safest place for a person to be openly queer in New York City,' he said. 'It was a scary time for me because all the news stories about queer men revolved around AIDS and dying, and how the disease was the Christian god's vengeance against the 'sin of homosexuality,'' Jones added. 'It was the first time that I had come across any literature that confirmed that queer men have a childhood; that my own desires were not, in fact, some aberration, but were natural; and that any suffering and loneliness I was experiencing wasn't divine retribution, but was the intention of a human-made bigotry that could be, if I had the courage and the community, confronted and perhaps defeated," he said. Starting in the 1970s, White published more than 25 books, including novels, memoirs, plays, biographies and 'The Joy of Gay Sex,' a response to the 1970s bestseller 'The Joy of Sex." He held the rare stature for a living author of having a prize named for him, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, as presented by the Publishing Triangle. 'White was very supportive of young writers, encouraging them to explore and expand new and individual visions,' said Carol Rosenfeld, chair of the Triangle. The award was 'one way of honoring that support.' Winners such the prize was founded, in 2006, have included 'The Prophets,' Myriam Gurba 's 'Dahlia Season' and Joe Okonkwo's 'Jazz Moon.' Earlier this year, the award was given to Jiaming Tang's ' Cinema Love,' a story of gay men in rural China. Tang remembered reading 'A Boy's Own Story' in his early 20s, and said that both the book and White were 'essential touchpoints in my gay coming-of-age.' 'He writes with intimate specificity and humor, and no other writer has captured the electric excitement and crushing loneliness that gay men experience as they come of age,' Tang said. "He's a towering figure. There'd be no gay literature in America without Edmund White.'
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Miley Cyrus and Boyfriend Maxx Morando Take Couple Coordinating to a Whole New Level with Matching Hairstyles
Miley Cyrus and boyfriend Maxx Morando went out for a glamorous date night in New York City on June 5 While the couple didn't coordinate their ensembles, they did have matching hairstyles Cyrus and Morando have been dating since 2021Miley Cyrus and her boyfriend, Maxx Morando, are hair twins. The "Flowers" singer, 32, was spotted having a fashionable night out with her musician boyfriend, 26, in New York City, on Thursday, June 5. The couple was spotted leaving the Four Seasons Hotel after Cyrus' private event, then they set off for the rest of their evening. For their date night, Cyrus wore a brown satin, fitted cone bra dress with black criss-cross lace details down the front of the dress, as well as the hips. The hem of the dress featured a long fringe that swayed as the singer walked. Morando kept his look classic for the evening, wearing an all black suit consisting of a jacket, matching shirt and black pants. For a casual touch, the musician kept a couple of buttons loose to expose a white crew neck undershirt. Though their outfits were distinct, the couple matched when it came to the way they styled their hair. Cyrus styled her brunette hair with blonde highlights in carefree curls that cascaded down her back. She also styled her now grown out baby bangs into curls that were flipped away from her face, and folded in seamlessly into the rest of her hair. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Morando, meanwhile, kept his overgrown mullet and bangs styled as he normally does — he let his natural curls pop, with a few pieces laying less than perfectly for a chic touch. Cyrus' curls paired with Morando's curls led to a matching hair moment that recalled the likes of David and Victoria Beckham's twinning hair styles in the 2000s, or Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt in the '90s. Cyrus and Morando's last major matching hair moment came in March, when the couple walked the red carpet at the 97th annual Oscars on March 2. is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more! For the glamorous red carpet date night, Cyrus wore a custom Alexander McQueen black halter dress with sequined and sheer elements. Though Cyrus would debut baby bangs later that night, she started off the evening with old Hollywood-inspired curls. Morando similarly kept his mullet styled in his natural curls, though his were wispier and highlighted with blonde — a near-direct match to Cyrus's blonde highlights for the evening. Read the original article on People
