The Truth About Gene Hackman's First Marriage

Gene Hackman has largely put work aside. After dominating Hollywood with his acting for more than six decades, the award-winning actor last starred in a film in 2004, when he shared the screen with Ray Romano in the political satire "Welcome to Mooseport." While Hackman never formally retired, he noted in 2008 that he was taking his attention elsewhere. "I'm not going to act any longer. I've been told not to say that over the last few years, in case some real wonderful part comes up, but I really don't want to do it any longer," the "Mississippi Burning" star told Reuters. Now in his 90s, Hackman sure deserves some peace and quiet. And that is exactly what he is getting.

Since stepping back, Hackman has favored a reclusive life with his wife, Betsy Arakawa, away from the spotlight. After falling in love with the magical scenery of New Mexico in the 1980s, Hackman bought a house in the Santa Fe area, he told Architectural Digest in 1990. He never fell out of love with the city, which he continues to call home today, according to Closer Weekly.

Hackman and Arakawa, a Hawaiian classical pianist, spend their days tending to the yard, doing housework, and bicycling around Santa Fe. "He loves the peaceful life he shares with the lovely Betsy," a source told Closer Weekly. While the legendary actor has found a healthy balance between married life and work, it took him going through a divorce to learn how.

Gene Hackman was 25 and entirely unknown when he met Faye Maltese at a Y.M.C.A. in New York in 1955, according to The New York Times. Hackman married Maltese the following year, shortly before he moved back to his native California as an aspiring actor and enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he befriended the equally unknown Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall, as Vanity Fair detailed.

Soon after, Hackman and Maltese returned to New York City, where the actor found work in Off-Broadway plays. Hackman started to find meaningful parts in the 1960s and before the decade closed, the actor earned his first Academy Award for his supporting role in "Bonnie & Clyde." That's also when he admittedly started to neglect his wife and three children. "You become very selfish as an actor,” he told The New York Times in 1989. ”You spend so many years wanting desperately to be recognized as having the talent and then when you're starting to be offered these parts, it's very tough to turn anything down." 

In search of success, Hackman accepted work that required him to be off on location for months on end. "Even though I had a family, I took jobs that would separate us for three or four months at a time," he added. By 1986, he and Maltese had divorced. "The temptations in that, the money and recognition, it was too much for the poor boy in me," he said.

Gene Hackman's career ambition didn't just affect his relationship with his first wife, Faye Maltese. His busy schedule also put up a wall between him and his children. "I lost touch with my son in terms of advice early on. Maybe it had to do with being gone so much, doing location films when he was at an age where he needed support and guidance," Hackman told GQ in 2011 of his son, Christopher. Because Hackman wasn't always there to see Christopher and his daughters, Leslie and Elizabeth, grow up, he didn't find space to parent them either. "It was very tough for me to be gone for three months and then come home and start bossing him around," he said.

Despite the early distance, Hackman reconnected with his children as adults. "He wishes he'd been around more for his children, but now he's close with them and their kids," a source told Closer Weekly in 2020. After moving to New Mexico and marrying Betsy Arakawa in 1991, Hackman started to invite Christopher, Leslie, and Elizabeth to spend time with him — moments that became invaluable to him, according to a 1994 Chicago Tribune report.

In fact, his children are among the only people Hackman sees. A fierce protector of his privacy, Hackman prefers to spend his days reading and writing novels. "I like the loneliness of [writing], actually. It's similar in some ways to acting, but it's more private," he told Reuters.