Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, lived in Santa Fe Summit, a gated community just east of Santa Fe. Photo / Adria Malcolm, The New York Times
Before they were found dead at home last week, the movie star and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, lived an increasingly isolated life in New Mexico.
He had two Oscars, adoring fans and four decades of acting to his credit. He won over critics, befriended celebrities and starred in scores of films watched by millions of moviegoers. But for the past two decades, Gene Hackman found solace at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac where few neighbours ever even saw him.
Hackman, 95, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 65, who were both found dead in their home just outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, last week, were famous for their privacy after retiring. And the revelation that Hackman probably died nine days before the couple’s bodies were found illustrates the seclusion of their neighbourhood and just how isolated they had become.
In Santa Fe Summit, the gated community where they lived just east of the city, even some of their nearest neighbours said they had seen no sign of the couple in recent years, except for their trash cans on the side of the road, waiting to be picked up. The couple did not attend homeowners association meetings or annual picnics, and their expansive four-bedroom home – on a quiet road called Old Sunset Trail – is hidden even from the start of the driveway.
The couple did have their share of friends around town. Hackman had invested in a restaurant, where his paintings hung on the walls, and Arakawa had co-founded a store that sells home goods. But some friends said the couple retreated further from public life during the Covid-19 pandemic, and at home, they basked in their neighbourhood’s solitude. Their desire for privacy was respected by their neighbours, who include doctors, lawyers and executives drawn to the community in search of private houses with stunning views a short drive from downtown Santa Fe.
“They have a gate, and we have a gate, and we just have never even seen each other,” said James Everett, who has lived part-time in a house next door for about five years.
Those who bumped into Hackman or Arakawa over the years said they were friendly and had an obvious love for their three dogs, sometimes walking them through the neighbourhood. (One of their three German shepherds was found dead in the house last week, and two others were found alive on the property.)
Helen Dufreche, who lived on an adjacent street before moving to Louisiana to be closer to her grandchildren, said she would never forget the first time she met Hackman, more than a decade ago. Wearing a baseball cap, he pulled up alongside her in a truck and marvelled at her dachshunds.
“What cute puppies!” Dufreche recalled him saying through the window.
When one of Dufreche’s dogs, Payton, was a finalist for The Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual pet calendar, Arakawa stopped to tell Dufreche that she and Hackman had recognised Payton’s picture in the paper. Dufreche said she went home and told Payton, “Gene Hackman’s been talking about you”.
She said she sometimes saw Arakawa driving in or out of the neighbourhood with the three German shepherds in the back of her Toyota Land Cruiser.
Dufreche said she last saw Hackman around 2017, as he drove by in his truck with a mountain bike attached to the back. She said he looked healthy and fit, “just like he did in ‘Crimson Tide’”.
Bud Hamilton, who lived next door to the couple for about two decades, said he and his wife had dinner with them only once, soon after moving to the neighbourhood.
Knowing that Hamilton was involved with the Cancer Foundation for New Mexico, Hackman donated a painting every year for the foundation to auction off, up until this past year.
Hackman and Arakawa may have been particularly private, but that was not unusual in Santa Fe Summit. There are only about 55 houses in the community, and many residents – both full-time and part-time – said in interviews that they knew only a handful of their neighbours.
Claire Lange, a real estate agent who lives in a different part of the neighbourhood from the Hackman home, said seclusion was part of the appeal of living in the hills.
“Santa Fe is about enjoying the beauty, but also about being private and doing your own thing,” she said. “People live here very, very quietly.”
Others agreed.
“I know there’s some nice people up there; I just don’t know them,” said Beau Theriot, who lives in Texas and visits his house in the neighbourhood a few times a year. He said he was a big fan of Hackman’s films and had seen him a few years ago, using a cane as he walked along the road beside his wife.
Even those who rarely saw the respected Hollywood star, who appeared in more than 100 films and television shows over his 43-year career, enjoyed calling him a neighbour, and are now mourning his and his wife’s deaths.
Norma Lord, who owns a house nearby with her husband, said she had grown up watching Hackman’s movies. Her husband saw Hackman walking a dog at Christmas, she said, but otherwise they had not encountered the couple.
Harvey Chalker, a longtime resident of the enclave who ran a ski shop in Santa Fe for several decades with his wife, said that when he was president of the homeowners association, Arakawa handled the couple’s business, and Hackman once bought a pair of hiking shoes from his shop.
“He wanted to be quiet, he didn’t want to be bothered, and I don’t blame him,” Chalker said.
Several neighbours said they were particularly heartbroken that Hackman had apparently died February 17, meaning that he and Arakawa might have been dead for as long as nine days before being discovered Wednesday.
Fernando Miranda, a neurologist who has owned a house near the couple since 2018, said he had been thinking back to his most recent visit to the neighbourhood, shortly after February 17. He said he had spent time as he usually did, reading, playing the harpsichord and reflecting.
It was sad, he said, to think that Hackman – whom Miranda said was one of his heroes – was probably lying dead, but not yet discovered, a few houses away.
In his years in Santa Fe Summit, Miranda said, he had spoken with only two or three neighbours, at most.
“We all sort of cherish the fact that we are isolated,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
Photographs by: Adina Malcolm
©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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