From the Hollywood spotlight, actor Jean Hackman drew pictures, did Pilates, and rode his bike in Santa Fe, a community woven into the fabric of the local community.
Friends said Hackman came to cherish a simpler life from the hype of paparazzi and show business machines. In Santa Fe, he made friends, attended community events and dined at local eateries.
“He was a pretty modest individual, despite being the person who gave great stories about Hollywood and other celebrities,” said longtime friend Stuart Ashman. “He was just a normal guy.”
However, this peaceful anonymity did not continue to kill the Oscar winner.
Last week, 95-year-old Hackman and his wife, Betsie Arakawa, 65, were found dead at home along with one of the three dogs. Investigators have ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning, but are awaiting the results of toxicology. They are working to reconstruct the couple’s last day timeline through phone records, emails and other means.
The couple was said to be private, but they were adjacent to each other by people who have come to know them over the years.
Ashman was one of those people. They sat next to each other at a community arts meeting and then became friends with the two-time Oscar winner almost 30 years ago. Ashman was the director of the New Mexico Museum of Art at the time, while Hackman had a seat on the Georgia O’Keefe Museum’s board of directors and served from 1997 to 2004.
“He told me his name and I said ‘Of course I know who you are,'” Ashman said. “He just smiled at his big smile and our friendship went from there.”
For two years, Ashman was Hackman’s part-time egg supplier, occasionally giving him a dozen gifts from the chickens he was raising. One day, Hackman replied with a painted tree-lined landscape. When Ashman refused to take it first, Hackman insisted politely.
“Gene told me, “You’ve been giving me eggs for two years. I think painting is a fair deal,” recalls Ashman.
The two also chatted it between Pilates classes, where they shared the same personal instructor.
“She’ll say, ‘Jean, are you working here or would you like to visit with Stuart?” Ashman laughed.
A landscape painting by Gene Hackman was presented to his friend Stuart Ashman.
(Purchased by Stuart Ashman)
Ashman discussed how Hackman rented a house with Florida keys a few years ago in the winter and perhaps meets after a holiday, but the pandemic then broke out.
Longtime friend Doug Lanham didn’t consider Hackman a movie star, but he’s a couple who’s always helped him in the community, half of Jean and Betsy.
Their friendship also began by chance. The couple went to the restaurant Ginjabar & Bistro in the early 2000s and chatted with Lanham and other owners, Lanham said. The topic of Arakawa’s cooking skills has emerged.
Lanham invited Arakawa by the day after the kitchen tasted some new recipes. Arakawa apparently had her own ideas.
“The next day, Betsy looks really amazing and confident,” Lanham said. “And then the gene appears behind Betsy and embraces the cooler with all the food Betsy was trying to prepare for sample.”
Ultimately, the couple formed a financial interest in the restaurant. Over the years, Hackman has contributed his work, now hanging inside, including one large piece that takes up most of the 5 x 13-foot wall.
Initially, Hackman was scared of the film, Lanham said.
Gene Hackman will speak at the Georgia O’Keefe Museum’s grand opening ceremony in Santa Fe in 1997.
(Georgia O’Keefe Museum)
“You’ve done all these movies, you’ve never heard of them say you can’t do anything,” Lanham teased Hackman with a few beers.
But three weeks later, Hackman called the restaurant owner to his artist studio. There they spotted a bunch of tropical leaves hanging from wires on the ceiling he used as a model, and on the rear wall was a large triplet of a woman looking out over the sunset in a South Pacific environment.
Arakawa was amazed at the work, but Hackman was much more calm, Lanham said. The customer response was generally positive, but there were critics.
“You see them cross their arms and go look at the mural, and that’s a bit [Paul] Gauguin, look at the colour. Then I go, ‘Oh, this is the go gene. Look at this colour,” Lanham said.
The couple has slowed down in recent years, according to news reports.
Arakawa and Hackman friends Daniel and Barbara Lenihan told People magazine that along with her son Aaron, Hackman was “essentially tied to his home,” and that he stopped riding bikes around his neighborhood. He had shown his age in recent months, but his wife was in “complete health,” the family told the magazine. She tried to get him to work and engage, including doing puzzles and yoga on Zoom.
“They looked like real life partners. They were really, really, really close, and both were incredibly kind,” Aaron Lenihan told people. “They were booked, but they were authentic, [and] Lots of fun. ”
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