Betsy Arakawa

Betsy Machiko Arakawa Hackman (December 15, 1959 – c. February 12, 2025) was an American classical pianist and businesswoman. Born in Hawaii, she performed alongside the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra aged eleven and later worked for the television game show Card Sharks as a production assistant. She met Gene Hackman in the 1980s, marrying him in 1991 and assisting with his novels. In 2001, she co-founded a linens and home furnishings store in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she and Hackman lived; the couple were also business partners in a local Asian restaurant.

Arakawa was found dead along with her husband at their home in Santa Fe on February 26, 2025. This led to an investigation, which showed that she died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome around February 12, about a week before Hackman.

Life and career

Betsy Machiko Arakawa was born on December 15, 1959, raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, and was of Japanese descent. An only child, she was raised by her mother who was a businesswoman. She went to Kahala Elementary School and Punahou School, the same private school as Barack Obama. As a child, Arakawa studied piano with Ellen Masaki and performed at the Honolulu International Center Concert Hall at age eleven, where she performed the final movement of Joseph Haydn's Keyboard Concerto in G major alongside the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. Arakawa studied social sciences and communication at the University of Southern California from 1981 to 1983. She later completed a master's degree in liberal arts at St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. During a summer break, Arakawa served as a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Aztecs, a professional soccer team, and worked for the television game show Card Sharks as a production assistant.

Arakawa met Hackman in the 1980s while working part-time at a Los Angeles fitness center. In 1989, she performed at the Altenheim Geriatric Center in Forest Park, Illinois, which appeared as a nursing home in one of the films Hackman starred in, The Package. Arakawa and Hackman acquired a property on Old Sunset Trail, a residential area in the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico. There, they worked with architects to convert a 1950s block building into a house that was "light and soaring", drawing on a unique blend of local pueblo and colonial styles, and acquired furniture during their travels. Their home also had a separate studio building, which had Arakawa's grand pianos on one side and Hackman's art studio on the other. The house was featured in Architectural Digest magazine in April 1990.

After dating for seven years, they married on December 1, 1991, aged 31 and 61, after which she stopped performing in concert. In Hackman's later life, he wrote and published three historical novels with anthropologist Daniel Lenihan; Arakawa assisted by typing up Hackman's handwritten notes, editing, and providing feedback. In the acknowledgments of the 2004 novel, Justice for None, the co-authors thanked her for intervening when their disagreements became heated. In 2001, Arakawa and her close friend Barbara Lenihan co-founded a linens and home furnishings store in Santa Fe named Pandora's, which she ran until her death. Arakawa and Hackman were also business partners in a local Asian restaurant called Jinja, where she had helped with the menu.

Arakawa was last seen alive at a CVS Pharmacy on February 11, 2025 and returned to their gated community at 5:15 pm. On February 12, 2025, Arakawa called a physician, who runs a private health clinic in Santa Fe, and made an appointment for that afternoon, but did not show up. Arakawa died in their home a short time later from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare disease passed from rodents. Two weeks later, neighborhood security found the Hackmans and one of their three dogs dead in their home after maintenance workers had alerted them, concerned that the couple failed to answer the door; in the ensuing investigation, their deaths were initially treated as suspicious. Arakawa's cause of death was announced at a press conference on March 7, 2025 by investigators, who also announced that she had died about a week before her husband, who died from heart disease.

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