Betsy Arakawa, a concert pianist and co-founder of a home furnishing business, was found dead Wednesday in her Santa Fe, New Mexico, home along with and their dog, according to authorities. She was 65.
actor-husband Gene HackmanArakawa and the 95-year-old Hackman lived in a Southwestern-style ranch on Old Sunset Trail, in a gated community that looks out on the Rocky Mountains. They owned as many as three German shepherds at one time and often spent their free time watching movies.
“We like simple stories that some of the little low-budget films manage to produce,” Hackman told Empire magazine in 2009.
Denise Avila, a sheriff’s office spokesperson, said there was no indication they had been shot or had any wounds.
Raised in Honolulu, Arakawa studied piano at an early age and was just 11 when she performed for 9,000 children at the Honolulu International Center Concert Hall, according to a 1971 report from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper.
According to a 1981 column in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, she attended a private prep school in Honolulu before moving to Los Angeles and studying at the University of Southern California, from which she graduated with a degree in social sciences and communication.
