Yesterday afternoon, the bodies of Gene Hackman, Betsy Arakawa, and their dog were found at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The County Sheriff’s Office did not have reason to suspect foul play this early in the investigation, and there’s no official confirmation on the cause of their deaths. Many have suggested it may have been carbon monoxide poisoning.
The couple had been married since 1991.
Betsy Arakawa, 63, was a retired classical pianist and co-owned Pandora’s Box, a home furnishings store in Santa Fe which she launched with her friend Barbara Lenihan. She resolutely avoided the spotlight and cherished her privacy, never giving public interviews and preferring to live a quiet life with her husband.
Gene Hackman, 95, was a Marine Corps veteran who had wanted to act since he was ten years old and pursued that dream several years after he left the service.
At the Pasadena Playhouse, Mr. Hackman and his friend Dustin Hoffman were voted “The Least Likely to Succeed” and shortly thereafter moved to NYC to prove the doubters wrong and make their way into the industry. They befriended Robert Duvall, and the three struggling actors shared apartments for much of the ‘60s.
All three became some of the best actors of their generation and among the greatest of all-time.
Mr. Hackman won Oscars for Best Actor (The French Connection, 1971) and Best Supporting Actor (Unforgiven, 1993), along with additional nominations for Best Actor (Mississippi Burning, 1989) and Best Supporting Actor (Bonnie & Clyde, 1968; I Never Sang for My Father, 1971).
He also won three Golden Globes (five additional nominations, plus the 2003 Cecil B. DeMille Award), two BAFTAs (five additional nominations), and a Screen Actors Guild Award along with the rest of the cast of The Birdcage (1997).
That’s all swell, but itemizing accolades doesn’t come close to doing justice to the spell cast by Gene Hackman onscreen.
The magic of Mr. Hackman is that he somehow played the same person and a completely different person, simultaneously, in every movie, and it always felt exactly right.
If you saw his face in a movie when you were flipping channels, you stopped to watch.
Because it's Gene Hackman. I mean, Hoosiers (1986). C’mon, now.
Every big character Mr. Hackman has done is so individually compelling whilst simultaneously bearing hallmarks that can only be done by Gene Hackman and wouldn't be as good without them, and we completely bought it every time.
It never felt like he broke himself down for characters. He seemed to just put on a costume and act his ass off. And it always worked.
My favorite performance by Mr. Hackman is Captain Ramsey in Crimson Tide (1995), the commander of a nuclear submarine who is clearly emotionally unstable and paranoid.
I’ve watched that movie so many times, and even when he’s not onscreen, Mr. Hackman looms large in every frame, somehow stealing scenes he’s not even in.
The pettiness and resentment and narcissism of the character is so palpable that the thought still briefly crosses my mind during every rewatch: “Damn, he’s gonna get ‘em all killed.”
One of the more interesting “what ifs” in the history of film casting is how Mr. Hackman almost played Calvin Jarrett, the father in Ordinary People (1980), but withdrew due to a financial disagreement with the studio.
The late, great Donald Sutherland was cast instead and gave a superb performance—which was infamously snubbed for a Best Actor nomination that year—but just for a second, try to imagine Mr. Hackman in that particular role.
I want to see that movie, too.
Mr. Hackman fully stepped away from acting in 2004 and confirmed his retirement in subsequent years, only making a guest appearance in an episode of “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives” in 2008 and lending his voice to two Marine Corps documentaries.
Ms. Arakawa and Mr. Hackman remodeled a home in Santa Fe and built a quiet and peaceful life there over the past 35 years, away from all the glitz and glamour and gossip of Hollywood and the film industry, for which neither had much patience.
Their idea of a good time was spending every Friday night watching stand-up comedy, Susie Izzard being one of their favorites.
Their family and friends are in my thoughts today.
What a year, y’all. What a year.
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