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Boston Globe
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Betsy Arakawa, a classical musician and the wife of Gene Hackman, dies at 65
'If in fact I have a style, it came from repeated edits, friends' suggestions, and my wife's unwavering, specific read-throughs,' he told the 'Writer's Bone' podcast in 2014. Advertisement Hackman would write his books with pen and paper, and Ms. Arakawa would type them up on a computer, making edits or sharing thoughts on characters with him, according to Barbara Lenihan, a friend of the couple for nearly 35 years. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'She was very involved with what he did,' Lenihan said. 'She made it very possible for him to do it.' Betsy Machiko Arakawa was born Dec. 15, 1959, and grew up in Honolulu. She began playing the piano at a young age. At 11, as a sixth-grader at Kahala Elementary School, she performed in front of thousands of students at the Honolulu International Center Concert Hall, now the Neal S. Blaisdell Center. She later performed with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, now the Hawai'i Symphony Orchestra. After moving to Los Angeles, she attended the University of Southern California from 1981 to 1983, graduating with a degree in social sciences and communication. During that time, she was a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Aztecs, a professional soccer team, and worked as a production assistant on the television game show 'Card Sharks,' according to The Honolulu Star-Advertiser. She graduated with a master's degree in liberal arts from St. John's College in New Mexico in 1991. She met Hackman in the 1980s while she was working part time at a fitness center in Los Angeles and trying to make it as a classical musician. Hackman had three children from a previous marriage, and in 1991 he and Ms. Arakawa married and settled in Santa Fe. Her survivors include her stepchildren, Christopher, Elizabeth and Leslie, and a grandchild. Advertisement In 1989, when she was dating Hackman, she gave a concert to residents at the retirement home that was used as a German nursing home in his film 'The Package.' After they married, she largely stopped performing in public. Ms Arakawa kept her life private, avoiding interviews and staying off social media. She would appear at awards shows with Hackman, and was often on the set of his movies, but avoided the limelight. 'She had to do a lot of Hollywood things, but she was very private,' Lenihan said. 'I think she could keep the parameters of their life together very well, and he appreciated that.' In 2001, Ms. Arakawa, who had an eye for interior design, opened Pandora's, a linens and home furnishings store in Santa Fe, with Lenihan. The longtime friends were running the store until her death. This article originally appeared in
The Independent
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Betsy Arakawa, concert pianist married to actor Gene Hackman, dead at 65
Betsy Arakawa, a concert pianist and co-founder of a home furnishing business, was found dead Wednesday in her Santa Fe, New Mexico, home along with actor-husband Gene Hackman and their dog, according to authorities. She was 65. Arakawa and the 95-year-old Hackman lived in a Southwestern-style ranch on Old Sunset Trail, in a gated community that looked out on the Rocky Mountains. They owned as many as three German shepherds at one time and often spent their free time watching movies. 'We like simple stories that some of the little low-budget films manage to produce,' Hackman told Empire magazine in 2009. Denise Avila, a sheriff's office spokesperson, said there was no indication they had been shot or had any wounds. Raised in Honolulu, Arakawa studied piano at an early age and was just 11 when she performed for 9,000 children at the Honolulu International Center Concert Hall, according to a 1971 report from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper. According to a 1981 column in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, she attended a private prep school in Honolulu before moving to Los Angeles and studying at the University of Southern California, from which she graduated with a degree in social sciences and communication. After college, she played with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, now the Hawai'i Symphony Orchestra, and gave a more private show in 1989 at a Chicago-area nursing home used for Hackman's film 'The Package.' In Santa Fe, she helped found Pandora's in 2001. The store's website describes Pandora's as 'dealing in functional art, the art of life — what one lives in, sleeps in and wraps around one's shoulders on a chilly day.' She and Hackman met in the mid-1980s at a gym in California, according to a 1989 story in The New York Times, and they married in 1991. Hackman would deny that their relationship broke up his first marriage, to Faye Maltese. 'By the way, I did not leave my real life wife for a younger woman. We just drifted apart,' he told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in 1985, when he was promoting the film 'Twice in a Lifetime,' in which his character is a family man who falls for another woman. ____ Associated Press writer Claire Rush contributed from Portland, Oregon, and Randy Herschaft contributed from New York.
New York Times
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Betsy Arakawa, a Classical Musician and the Wife of Gene Hackman, Dies at 65
Betsy Arakawa, a classical musician and small-business owner who was married to Gene Hackman and helped edit his novels, died on Wednesday with him at their home in Santa Fe, N.M., the local authorities said on Thursday. She was 65. Sheriff's deputies found the bodies of Ms. Arakawa and Mr. Hackman, 95, along with one of their dogs, on Wednesday afternoon, according to a statement from the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department, which said that foul play was not suspected. Mr. Hackman was nominated for five Academy Awards and won two during a 40-year acting career. In his later years, he became a published author, witing three historical novels, and he attributed his writing style, in part, to Ms. Arakawa. 'If in fact I have a style, it came from repeated edits, friends' suggestions and my wife's unwavering, specific read-throughs,' he told the 'Writer's Bone' podcast in 2014. Mr. Hackman would write his books with pen and paper, and Ms. Arakawa would type them up on a computer, making edits or sharing thoughts on characters with him, according to Barbara Lenihan, a friend of the couple for nearly 35 years. 'She was very involved with what he did,' Ms. Lenihan said. 'She made it very possible for him to do it.' Betsy Machiko Arakawa was born on Dec. 15, 1959, and grew up in Honolulu. She began playing the piano at a young age. At 11, as a sixth grader at Kahala Elementary School, she performed in front of thousands of students at the Honolulu International Center Concert Hall, now the Neal S. Blaisdell Center. She later performed with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, now the Hawai'i Symphony Orchestra. After moving to Los Angeles, she attended the University of Southern California from 1981 to 1983, graduating with a degree in social sciences and communication. During that time, she was a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Aztecs, a professional soccer team, and worked as a production assistant on the television game show 'Card Sharks,' according to The Honolulu Star-Advertiser. She graduated with a master's degree in liberal arts from St. John's College in New Mexico in 1991. She met Mr. Hackman in the 1980s while she was working part-time at a fitness center in Los Angeles and trying to make it as a classical musician. Mr. Hackman had three children from a previous marriage, and in 1991 he and Ms. Arakawa married and settled in Santa Fe. Her survivors include her stepchildren, Christopher, Elizabeth and Leslie. In 1989, when she was dating Mr. Hackman, she gave a concert to residents at the retirement home that was used as a German nursing home in his film 'The Package.' After they married, she largely stopped performing in public. Despite being married to a big-name actor, Ms. Arakawa kept her life private, avoiding interviews and staying off social media. She would appear at awards shows with Mr. Hackman, and was often on the set of his movies, but avoided the limelight. 'She had to do a lot of Hollywood things, but she was very private,' Ms. Lenihan said. 'I think she could keep the parameters of their life together very well, and he appreciated that.' In 2001, Ms. Arakawa, who had an eye for interior design, opened Pandora's, a linens and home furnishings store in Santa Fe, with Ms. Lenihan. The longtime friends were running the store until Ms. Arakawa's death.
