Santa Fe, New Mexico-Gene Hackman was many things, especially an award-winning actor, but what many do not know is that Hackman loved a good joke.
Your friend and ex The 76 -year -old Doug Lanham, said he played golf with Hackman, and while he was in the course, they would make bets, something that said Hackman never thought it was a good idea.
Lanham told NBC News that after a couple of years, he asked Hackman to for the $ 22 he owed.
Indeed, Hackman reimbursed his friend, with cents worth $ 22, he addressed the restaurant they owned together in a large tool chest, Lanham recalled, along with a note that said: “I paid this debt under protest when considering that he took advantage of the elderly.” Hackman signed the letter “Captain Hollywood”, an nickname that his friends called him.
Lanham and Hackman met years ago, when Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, entered the restaurant that Lanham possesses, Jinja Bar & Bistro in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with a mutual friend. Lanham said he invited the couple the next day to cook in their restaurant, and the couple forced him.
“We cook and have fun and at some point Gene and Betsy … they said ‘we want to invest’ and losing a quarter of a million dollars [in the first year] We said ‘That is a great idea, “Lanham recalled.
They were commercial partners for almost 10 years, Lanham said.
Hackman and Arakawa were found dead in rooms separated from their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Wednesday. The authorities have called their “suspicious” deaths.
According to Lanham, one of the couple’s dogs, a German shepherd named Bear, was found dead in a kennel, while two others were found alive on the property.
The cause and the form of death have not been determined, the Sheriff’s office of the Santa Fe County said on Friday.
An initial autopsy did not show signs of external trauma for Hackman or Arakawa, and the couple gave negative for carbon monoxide poisoning, Sheriff Adan Mendoza said Friday. The results of the toxicology and complete autopsy tests are pending.
Hackman probably died on February 17, the last date on which his pacemaker registered an “event,” said Mendoza. He previously said that the couple had been dead “quite a while” for when they were found.
Hackman and Arakawa were very private people, something that Mendoza said that Friday has complicated efforts to build a timeline of their last days and that Lanham reiterated.
Lanham argued how the couple helped many financial companies financially, “but always under the radar,” he said, because they didn’t want or need credit. The same goes for the 14 original works of art that Hackman painted that align on the walls of Jinja; None of them are signed; Another attempt at the Hollywood icon to move away from itself.
“It’s heartbreaking, it’s disconcerting,” Lanham said about his deaths and the mystery that surrounds them. “They were so worthy and read about it, to listen to it, there is no way to connect the points when you know them as people.”
Lanham expected his friend to die one day, Hackman was 95 years old at the time of his death, “but not,” he said.
“It is totally out of the kingdom of anything you would associate with the two and that is what puts you on your knees,” he said.
‘The common man’
Lanham said “it was just a privilege” to be a friend of Hackman, whom he called “the best.”
“When there was trust and that door opened, it was incredible,” Lanham said.
He said Hackman had a “gold heart” and said he was “good luck” for his friendship.
Stuart Ashman, a friend of Hackman’s through Pilates classes and work at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, said that one of Hackman’s most impressive things is how he spoke with you, he really wanted to meet you. Lanham said the same.
“It was the common man,” Ashman said about Hackman. “It was very quiet, I think he really enjoyed life. And I was really interested in everything, in everything and everyone. ”
Ashman said Hackman “really joined the texture of Santa Fe in a big way.”
In a statement, Jesse Kesler, the couple’s personal contractor, thanked them “for the more than 16 years of opportunity, friendship and trust.”
He specifically thanked Hackman for giving the projects a hand and for treating his son and employed as the same.
He said that when Hackman was at work, he was just another of the boys.
“I couldn’t believe at that time that I was really working side by side with a legend,” Kesler said.
Dana Griffin reported from Santa Fe and Rebecca Cohen of New York City.
