In the wake of the Hollywood legend’s shock death alongside wife Betsy, Gene Hackman’s longtime friend and former business partner shared secrets of the man he and a select handful of others ‘were lucky to know’, and who he playfully dubbed Captain Hollywood.
Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead in their New Mexico home on February 26 with one of their dogs.
Two days after their shocking deaths, police announced that they believe Hackman died on February 17, after discovering that was the day his pacemaker stopped recording his heartbeat.
Their friends and family are now plagued with questions as to how the couple died, including, Doug Lanham, 76, a friend of Hackman’s in Santa Fe.
‘He was very private, but once the trust was there this door opened and it was magical,’ Lanham told DailyMail.com.
‘I was sitting there talking with Gene about growing up. His early days were not good. His father got in his car, waved at Gene. Even at a young age he knew he wouldn’t see him again.
‘His mom died in a fire. He shared some things about his mom. And when I talked about my history he was with me all the way.’
Lanham, who founded Santa Fe Asian restaurant Jinja in 2002, met Hackman two years later at dinner with a mutual friend, and bonded over their love of food.
Doug Lanham (right) spoke to Dailymail.com about what Gene Hackman was like while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Doug Lanham gave insight on Hackman’s eccentric personality and their friendship before his death
Hackman and Arakawa were spotted in Santa Fe ahead of his 94th birthday
The Hackmans invested in Jinja, and the two became business partners for several years until Lanham bought them out around 2017.
He showed up to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s press conference on Friday afternoon, dressed in dark glasses and a cap, brown animal hide jacket and suede boots, to see if he could glean any new information in the mystery surrounding his dear friends’ deaths.
Sheriff Adan Mendoza told reporters that autopsies of the couple showed no signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, an early theory by police, and revealed Hackman’s pacemaker last recorded his heartbeats on February 17, nine days before they were found on the floor of a bathroom and mudroom in their canyon ranch home.
‘I just can’t process what took place,’ Lanham told DailyMail.com afterward, his lip trembling, eyes welling behind his sunglasses.
‘We’d all kind of expected it, he’s 95, and in some of the pictures towards the end there he was looking frail.
‘But to read and hear what took place, I still have a hard time understanding. Because they were so dignified and so in love with each other.
‘My buddy sent me the picture of Gene with the news of his passing. It was 3am on Thursday. I started reading about the whole thing and I lost it. I’m kind of a mess sometimes.
‘I went up to the airport here, flew around in my plane, did a bunch of low-level, high-speed s*** in the mountains back here, just trying to get all this gunk out of my brain.’
Hackman pictured with two children at a July 4 party at Las Campanas country club in New Mexico
Hackman pictured with his wife and Lanham outside Harry’s Roadhouse Grill in Santa Fe
Hackman and Arakawa pictured at The 60th Annual Golden Globe Awards in 2003
Lanham said he couldn’t fathom any deliberate action involved in their deaths, due to their love of their three dogs, one of which was found dead near Betsy’s body.
He added that neither had ever mentioned suicide in his presence – though he had not seen them since before the Covid-19 pandemic, during which Hackman became increasingly reclusive.
‘If you knew the love they had for those doggies, they were a huge part of their life,’ he said.
‘Betsy drove a Land Cruiser. Coming down the highway, all you’d see would be four ears of these huge German Shepherds, and beautiful Betsy behind the wheel.
‘When my favorite dog Louie passed away, they came in the restaurant to say they were sorry, and sent a really nice card. People don’t do that. It shows who they are.’
He recounted how their friendship blossomed from their first dinner around 2004, when he invited Betsy and Gene to cook with them at Jinja.
‘Like an idiot, I go, we’re going to be cooking tomorrow, y’all want to join us?’ Lanham said.
The next day the ‘gorgeous, stunning and dignified’ Betsy showed up with a gruff Hackman in tow, lugging a cooler of ingredients.
‘He really got loosened up and we just had a ball.’
Lanham founded the Santa Fe Asian restaurant, Jinja, in 2002 and met Hackman through their love of cuisine
Hackman won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1993
Lanham said he soon grew to love Hackman’s mischievous personality and frequent, elaborate pranks. One involved a high-society event, red wine and water pistols.
‘He invited us to this fancy-ass country club, Las Campanas. It was a July 4 celebration,’ Lanham said.
‘It was a family deal. The club had set up several water troughs for the kids and they all had squirt guns.
‘Gene heads over to one of the water buckets. I see him negotiating with one of these eight-year-olds to give him a water gun.
‘Then I see him with a bottle of red wine. He doesn’t think anybody can see him in the corner, filling up the gun with it.
‘He busts out of there, turns into The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and goes, “You’d better run”.
‘This is a fancy-a** mucky muck place, and he’s chasing people around with a squirt gun full of red wine. He thought that was the most fun in the world.’
At another event in the Western desert town, Lanham was unsure what to wear. Gene told him, ‘You’d better get some of the best cowboy gear you can.’
‘I got this vest, a hat, jeans, boots, everything. I show up, and Gene’s got on a regular old shirt and hiking boots.
‘I go “What the f***?” and he started laughing. He said “Where’d you go, the props department for all that s***?”’
But underneath the bravado and jocular jibes, Lanham said he believed Hackman was hardest on himself.
‘He made 80-something films. He didn’t see one of them,’ Lanham said. ‘I think the person doing the creating, maybe they feel like it’s never good enough.
‘In his movie Mississippi Burning, he’s got this guy in a barber chair. Gene’s the detective, comes in and grabs a straight razor and puts it to his throat.
‘When you watch it you go, “f***, that’s real”. He twirls the guy around in the chair and he could’ve slit his neck.
‘I asked, “Gene, how did you do that?” He says “I don’t know, I’ve never seen it. I may have watched The French Connection.”’
Hackman and his wife spent their final years out of the spotlight in Santa Fe, Mexico
Hackman and Arakawa were married for over 30 years before their tragic deaths
Hackman starred in the 2001 Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenenbaums and was pictured at the premiere
Hackman was a prolific painter, making several pieces that now hang on Jinja’s walls, but was also uninterested in his completed works.
‘When he painted that mural in my restaurant, he wouldn’t come in and look at it,’ Lanham said.
He said the movie star was similarly uninterested in following through on wagers with his buddies.
‘He’d never pay his bets,’ Lanham said. ‘There’d be $2 on this, $5 of that. Finally I said “You haven’t paid a bet in a couple years now. Today you owe me $22.”
Hackman squared up to his friend and eyeballed him.
‘He got that stare. You can see it in some of his movies,’ Lanham said. ‘It was like, holy s***. He said, “Not paying my bets, huh?”’
‘A week later I’m sitting in my office, he comes in with a big toolbox, about four feet long and three wide, on wheels.
‘But Gene doesn’t know anything about tools, and he knows I don’t know anything about a hammer.
‘He looks at me, says “$22 huh?” turned around and walked away.
‘I opened it up. He’d took a five gallon water dispenser, cut the top off, and inside was about $400 in pennies.
‘On top was this note. He did it in pirate language, because we called him Captain Hollywood.
‘It’s on parchment paper. He took the time to burn the edges of it, and it’s written in calligraphy. Underneath he signed a skull and crossbones.’
The fake-aged letter says in a red scrawl: ‘It seemed but fair lads that ye olde Captain deduct his expenses ‘at were accrued in the paying of the so called “wager”. Here then are the afore mentioned particulars.
‘I pay this debt under protest as I deem it to be taking advantage of olde people.’
Lanham had the letter framed.
‘That’s an 80-something-year-old man doing this, and he’s just like a kid,’ he chuckled. ‘He’s a wonderful artist. But it’s my favorite piece of everything in there.’
When in the cockpit, Hackman was truly swashbuckling, and treated rules more as guidelines, Lanham said.
While working on the 1975 movie Lucky Lady opposite Burt Reynolds, Hackman took the famous macho man up in his stunt plane.
‘Burt didn’t last too long. Gene was flying upside down, doing some loops. He told me “He only lasted two minutes and I brought him back”,’ the restaurateur recounted.
Lanham shared a photo of the note Hackman wrote him that he jokingly signed ‘Capt. Hollywood’
Lanham had the note framed and posed with it for a photo
Later, on set and seeking to cheekily rub the embarrassment in, Lanham said Hackman then ‘took his airplane, flew it upside down and went right across where they were trying to film Bert.’
He told DailyMail.com that Gene and Betsy were the life of the party, fondly recounting how the Birdcage actor led drunken guests dancing at Lanham’s wedding.
‘I look up and see Gene and Betsy getting a conga line going with 20 of the guests,’ he said. ‘Everybody’s drunk, and they’re all keying off Gene, he was leading the whole thing, smiling, hollering and having an incredible time.’
He said Hackman met his wife while attending a spa in LA.
‘She was working the counter. He got his towel and threw it somewhere,’ he said. ‘She shouted at him, and Gene was like “oh s***”.
‘They were so tight and so wonderful together. She was very protective,’ he added.
Lanham said Betsy strictly policed photographers snapping Hackman even at small, private events, and kept him on a regimented healthy diet – against which he sometimes rebelled.
‘He always ate healthy with her. But then we’d go out and play golf, I’d look over and he’d have this f***ing honey bun that was a foot long. It was huge,’ said the ex-business partner.
‘I asked, “Is that the first time you got that?” He said “No, and don’t you tell her either.”
‘They were so close. Betsy was his protector. He shared with me several times, if it wasn’t for Betsy he’d be broke or dead.’
