Betsy Arakawa is a former classical pianist best known as the wife of Gene Hackman, an American retired actor, and author. Arakawa was born in Hawaii.
Quick Facts
| Full Name | Betsy Arakawa |
| First Name | Betsy |
| Last Name | Arakawa |
| Profession | Celebrity Wife |
| Nationality | American |
| Birth City | Hawaii |
| Birth Country | Western United States |
| Gender Identity | Female |
| Sexual Orientation | Straight |
| Horoscope | Sagittarius |
| Marital Status | Married |
| Spouse | Gene Hackman |
| Date of Birth | December 1, 1961 |
| Age | 61 years |
| Married Date | December,1991 |
She is the second wife of Gene Hackman.
For three decades, her husband was married to his first wife, Faye Maltese. Hackman and his first wife, Maltese, met in New York City when Hackman was 25 and struggling as an actor, and Maltese was working as a bank secretary. It was love at first sight for the pair, who married on New Year’s Eve 1956 at Pasadena Playhouse Theatre after a year of dating. Hackman enrolled at Pasadena Playhouse Theatre’s acting school when the couple relocated to California.
Maltese has been with Hackman from the start of his career. They returned to New York after Hackman was kicked out of the acting program owing to poor grades. Hackman subsequently began training twice a week with George Morrison, a graduate of Lee Strasberg’s Actor school. In 1964, Hackman co-starred in the film Any Wednesday alongside Warren Beatty. During an interview, Hackman admits to being an absentee parent because he was preoccupied with his developing job. He said that, despite having a family, he selected employment that required him to be away from them for three or four months at a time.
After almost three decades of friendship, Hackman and Maltese decided to split ways. In 1986, their divorce was formalized. However, the cause of their divorce remains unclear. The mother of Hackman’s three children, Christopher, Elizabeth, and Leslie, Hackman’s first wife, died in April 2017 at the age of 88. Because there was no mention of her sickness or accident, it is assumed that her death was natural.
Marriage & Children
Arakawa married her spouse in December 1991, and she is 30 years her junior. According to the reports, they initially met at a Los Angeles fitness club where she worked as a part-time employee. Hackman and his first wife had previously separated, therefore he was not officially divorced at the time. Despite being married to her spouse for nearly three decades, she does not have children with him. She is a stepmother to her husband’s three children, with whom she has a very strong relationship.
For the 50th anniversary of “The French Connection,” Hackman granted a rare interview.
At the age of 74, Hackman announced his retirement from acting. Prior to his retirement, there was no press release, notice, or anything else. During an interview with Empire, Hackman revealed that his retirement was due to health issues. According to him, the straw that broke the camel’s back was a stress test he did, during which the doctor told him that his heart wasn’t in good enough health to be stressed.
He also didn’t want to squander his time doing things like viewing DVDs that his wife had rented, fishing, and painting, so he pursued a second profession as an author. His passion for writing began when he composed a handful of monologues for his son Christopher, who once aspired to be an actor. He liked to write. Where am I going with these three things? What am I doing? What am I looking for? Are three basic things that may take you a long way as an actor and as a writer, he added.
Hackman and Arawaka have been enjoying a low-key existence away from the limelight since his retirement. On the 50th anniversary of “The French Connection,” the film that garnered him an Academy Award for best actor, Hackman conducted an email interview.
He composed Filmmaking has always been dangerous, both physically and emotionally, but he chooses to see that film as a blip in a long line of successes and failures. He also stated that he hadn’t seen the film since the first screening 50 years ago in a dark, tiny viewing room in a post-production company’s facility and that if the film has a legacy, he is unsure what it is, which at the time appeared to be a reverent story of a cop who was simply able to solve and put a stop to a major crime family’s attempt to infiltrate the New York drug scene for him. Furthermore, he said that the picture undoubtedly aided him in his career, for which he is thankful.
Net Worth
Her net worth is still being calculated. We now know the net worth of her spouse, one of the greatest performers of all time, Gene Hackman. He has received almost 30 honors in his six decades in the entertainment world, including two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, one Screen Actors Guild Award, two BAFTAs, and a silver Bear. He has an incredible net worth of $80 million as of December 2023.
