Gene Hackman’s Estate: His Will, His Net Worth, and Who Inherits (2026)

By Eric Ridley, attorney, Ridley Law. Updated October 2026.

This page covers what has been reported about the wills and the probate case after the deaths of Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa. It does not guess at what their trust says, because nobody outside the case has published it. I checked every date and fact against the reporting listed below on October 7, 2026.

Did Gene Hackman have a will?

Yes. According to probate court documents, Hackman signed an updated will in 2005 leaving his estate to his wife, and she signed a will that year directing her estate to him, the AP reported.

E! News reported that the two wills were signed on the same day in June 2005 and named each other as personal representative. Both named a Santa Fe attorney, who died in 2019, as the first backup. Both named Julia Peters as the second backup. With both spouses dead, the AP wrote, management of the estate is in Peters’ hands.

A will that goes through probate becomes a public court file, and this one did. A trust doesn’t. The AP reported that without the trust documents being made public, it’s unclear who the beneficiaries are and how the assets will be divided.

Who died first, Gene Hackman or Betsy Arakawa?

Arakawa died first, from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, and Hackman died about a week later of heart disease, with Alzheimer’s disease a contributing factor, the AP reported.

Maintenance workers found the couple on February 26, 2025. Hackman was 95 and Arakawa was 65. CNN reported that investigators first put Arakawa’s date of death at February 11, then found her phone was used to call a Santa Fe medical center on the morning of February 12. Authorities said Hackman likely died on February 18, when his pacemaker last recorded his heartbeat. The exact hour of each death isn’t public.

The order matters legally. Hackman’s plan was built around his wife outliving him.

Who inherits Gene Hackman’s estate?

That hasn’t been made public. The reporting describes a plan that left everything to a spouse who died first, and nobody has published how the backup provisions apply.

Hackman had three children from a previous marriage, the AP reported, and Arakawa had no children. E! News reported that Arakawa’s will included a provision treating the deaths as simultaneous if they happened within 90 days of each other, in which case her assets would go to charity. Hackman died within 90 days of her. Whether that clause controls, and what it reaches, depends on documents I haven’t seen. I found no court ruling and no filing that says how the estates will be divided.

The estate’s lawyers have kept the case quiet. The AP reported that the estate’s representative asked a New Mexico judge to keep the investigation records sealed, citing the couple’s privacy. On March 31, 2025, Judge Matthew Wilson allowed release of the records but barred depictions of the bodies, CBS News reported.

What was Gene Hackman’s net worth when he died?

ABC News described Hackman’s estate as $80 million in its Nightline coverage of the couple’s wills.

That is a news number, not an appraisal. I found no Forbes estimate and no figure in the court documents I could load. Estimates of an entertainer’s wealth vary because they rely on guesses about private investments, real estate and future earnings, and because a probate filing lists only what’s titled in the deceased person’s own name. Assets held in a trust don’t show up there.

As for where the money goes, the wills as reported sent it to the surviving spouse. With Arakawa gone, the open question is the one above: how the survival provisions and the private trust divide what each of them owned.

What does New Mexico law say when spouses die close together?

New Mexico’s default rule is a 120-hour survival requirement. Under N.M. Stat. Ann. § 45-2-702(A) and (B), a person who isn’t shown by clear and convincing evidence to have survived another by 120 hours is treated as having died first.

The statute also yields to the paperwork. Section 45-2-702(D) says the 120-hour rule doesn’t apply when a governing instrument expressly requires survival for a specified period, though survival must still be proven by clear and convincing evidence. A written 90-day requirement is that kind of instrument language. That’s my reading of the statute. I haven’t seen a court apply it to this estate, and I’m not saying how a judge will rule.

How would California handle a case like this?

California reaches a similar result by a different route. Under Prob. Code, § 220, when it can’t be shown by clear and convincing evidence which person survived the other, each person’s property is handled as if that person had survived the other.

That rule gives way to the document. Section 221, subdivision (b), says the chapter doesn’t apply where an instrument requires one person to survive another for a stated period. Section 21109 says a beneficiary who doesn’t survive until a time the instrument requires doesn’t take, and if survival can’t be shown by clear and convincing evidence, the beneficiary is treated as not having survived. For intestate estates, § 6403 sets a 120-hour requirement.

So in California, as in New Mexico, a survival period you write into your documents controls. Choose it on purpose.

What this means for your own plan

Hackman and Arakawa each left everything to the other. That works until the second spouse dies without time to change the plan.

• Name real backups. A plan where the spouse is the only beneficiary needs contingent beneficiaries in every document. The rules for a person who dies without a will show who gets the property when the documents fail.
• Pick the survival period deliberately. A 90-day clause can send assets somewhere you didn’t expect if both spouses die within that window. See blended family estate planning, because children from a prior marriage are the people most affected.
• Know where your trust stops. A will pours into a trust only if the trust exists and is funded. Trust funding and the pour-over will explain how the two documents fit.
• Don’t make one person the only trustee. When a spouse is the sole trustee and dies, someone has to step in. Successor trustee duties covers the role.
• Privacy has limits. Probate filings are public, and a will can be a public record. A funded trust keeps the terms out of court; avoiding probate in California explains how.

Gene Hackman’s case is one of several on this site. For the broader picture, see celebrity estates, and for two other cases, the Robin Williams estate and the Prince estate.