Gene Hackman confided to a friend that if it weren’t for his wife, Betsy Arakawa, he would have died “long ago.”
In an interview with the New York Times, Tom Allin, a longtime friend of the two-time Oscar winner, said that Hackman seemed “happy” to have his wife “run things” for him and ensure that he ate healthily.
“She was very protective of him,” Allin said, adding that Hackman had once told him he would have died “long ago” without her constant care and supervision. “She just really looked after him,” Allin continued, recalling how she diluted his wine with soda water when they were celebrating his 90th birthday back in 2020.
But he also observed that Hackman, who hadn’t been seen in public since being photographed on a lunch outing in March 2024, was starting to slip. The year before, he forgot his yearly tradition of cooking supper for Arakawa on her birthday.
The Times spoke to many people who lived in the couple’s gated community who said that they had retreated from public life in recent years, in part driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
After he retired from acting following his final role in 2004’s Welcome to Mooseport, Hackman decamped to New Mexico full time to live a life out of the limelight.
“I know that Gene did not like the role of celebrity,” another friend, Rodney Hatfield, said. “It was pretty obvious.”
Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 65 — who were married since 1991 — were found dead along with one of their three dogs inside their sprawling home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, last month.
In a press conference last Friday, New Mexico’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Heather Jarrell, shed light on how the couple’s horrific end unfolded.
According to Jarrell, Arakawa died a full week before her husband of hantavirus, a rare infectious illness that begins with flu-like symptoms and progresses rapidly to more severe disease.
Jarrell said the symptoms consist of fever, muscle aches, cough, vomiting and diarrhea that can progress into heart or lung failure and comes anywhere from one to eight weeks after exposure to excrement from “a particular mouse species.”
Arakawa was discovered in a bathroom in the couple’s home on Feb. 26. An opened orange prescription bottle was observed on the countertop, and pills were strewn around it. A deceased Kelpie mix dog (which was originally misidentified as a German Shepherd) was located inside a “closed crate,” with two other dogs found alive on the property.
Jarrell said the pills were thyroid medication which were being taken as prescribed.
The cause of death for Hackman was listed as a result of severe heart disease with advanced Alzheimer’s disease playing a “significant” contributing factor.
Jarrell then addressed when death might have occurred for the pair.
“There is no reliable scientific method to accurately determine the exact time or date of death. (But) Mr. Hackman’s initial pacemaker data revealed cardiac activity on Feb. 17. With subsequent pacemaker interrogation demonstrating an abnormal rhythm of atrial fibrillation on Feb. 18, which was the last record of heart activity. Based on this information, it is reasonable to conclude that Mr. Hackman probably died around Feb. 18,” Jarrell said.
Jarrell went on to add that “based on the circumstances it is reasonable to conclude that Ms. Hackman passed away first, with Feb. 11 being the last time she was known to be alive.”
She added that it was conceivable that Hackman did not know his wife had died inside their home.
“It’s quite possible he was not aware she was deceased,” Jarrell said.
“Mr. Hackman showed evidence of advanced Alzheimer’s disease,” Jarrell concluded. “He was in a very poor state of health. He had significant heart disease, and I think ultimately that’s what resulted in his death.”
In its report, police said Arakawa’s body showed “obvious signs of death, body decomposition, bloating in her face and mumification in both hands and feet.”
Both had been deceased “for quite a while.”
Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza said at the news conference Friday that Arakawa’s last known communication came on Feb. 11 when she emailed her massage therapist in the morning, and was spotted at a farmer’s market and a CVS drugstore later that afternoon.
“She then stopped at a local pet food store,” Mendoza said, adding that she re-entered their gated community at 5:15 p.m. But “numerous emails were unopened on her computer on Feb. 11. There was no additional outgoing communication from her or known activity after Feb. 11, 2025.”
Authorities descended on the property after receiving a 911 call from a maintenance worker who described seeing a body on the floor and urged emergency services to send help quickly.
Hackman had three children from his first marriage to Faye Maltese. His daughter, Leslie Anne Allen, 58, told the Daily Mail her father had been “in good health.”
“Despite his age, he was in very good physical condition,” she told the outlet. “He liked to do Pilates and yoga, and he was continuing to do that several times a week.”
But Leslie Anne said it had been some time since she had spoken to her father. “We were close. I hadn’t talked to them for a couple months, but everything was normal and everything was good,” she said.
Stephen Marshall, a retired FBI agent who was friends with the couple, said that Hackman didn’t embrace aging.
“Gene was concerned about the fact that he was getting older. He didn’t like being old, and seeing himself on film bothered him because he knew he didn’t look like that anymore,” Marshall told Fox News Digital.
Other friends speculated their life of seclusion ultimately played a role in Hackman’s harrowing final week alone while his wife lay dead nearby.
“All of us that knew him should have been checking on him,” friend Stuart Ashman told the Associated Press. “It’s just really sad … And that she died a week before him. My God.”