Gene Hackman and Wife Betsy's Friends Remember Their Deep Connection: ‘She Just Adored Him'

Members of Gene Hackman and wife Betsy's community in Santa Fe, New Mexico are opening up about the couple, weeks after they were both found dead in their home on Feb. 26.
In ABC News' special report The Last Days of Gene Hackman, which aired Tuesday, March 18, multiple people whom the network identified as friends of the couple spoke to their close relationship and warm personalities.
"Gene was a real guy's guy. He was a gentle giant, very calm," Kevin Bobolosky, identified as the couple's real estate broker, said. "Betsy, I think, mostly did all the cooking and cleaning on this big estate, out of love. She just adored him. So they had everything they wanted."
Stuart Ashman, a former director of Santa Fe's Museum of Fine Arts, recalled first meeting Hackman, who held a passion for painting outside of his film career, in the mid-1990s.
"When he talked to you, nothing else existed," Ashman said of the two-time Academy Award winner. "He was only interested in you, and he was very generous with his time, with his storytelling and also with his finances."
Related: Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa's Estates Share Update on Couple's Surviving Dogs: 'Both Are Safe' and 'Healthy'
Another man whom ABC News identified as Gene and Betsy's friend, Stephan Marshall, described Betsy as "a lovely and charming woman." She and Gene first met in the late 1980s at a gym in California, where Betsy worked at the time, as the special reported. Gene and Betsy married in 1991; he shared three adult children — Christopher, 65, Elizabeth, 62, and Leslie, 58 — with his first wife Faye Maltese, whom he was married to from 1956 to 1986. Maltese died in 2017 at 88.
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"She had been with Gene since she was pretty young," Marshall said of Betsy, who was a classically trained pianist and skilled musician. "He was very proud of her accomplishments; she had played with the Honolulu Philharmonic Orchestra."
Related: Who Inherits Gene Hackman and Wife Betsy's Estate? Why It Matters Who Died First, According to a Legal Expert
ABC News' special features interviews with Santa Fe sheriff Adan Mendoza and reporters and journalists who covered Gene's career in addition to those who said they were friends with the actor and Betsy.
"That really struck home with me thinking about Betsy. I'm sure it just never occurred to anybody that she wouldn't outlast him," Marshall said, regarding officials' belief that Betsy died on Feb. 12, one week before her husband's death.
A medical examiner found that the acting legend died from heart disease, high blood pressure and advanced Alzheimer's after Betsy died from hantavirus, a virus spread by rodents.
Gene died at 95, while Betsy was 65 at the time of her death.
ABC News' Last Days of Gene Hackman special airs Tuesday, March 18
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