Gene Hackman was a well-known actor, best known for his roles of playing both seriously tough and funny characters. In February 2025, the actor passed away, but controversy has sparked relating to his almost $80 million fortune that he left behind. Over his lifetime, Hackman created two Revocable Trusts, one in 1994 and one in 2005, and his most recent Last Will and Testament was signed in 2005. It has been revealed that Hackman’s Will and both of his Trusts left all of his assets to his current wife, Betsy Arakawa, who died in the same month before he did. Although we do not know any of the other beneficiaries listed in the 2005 Trust, the documents do not seem to include any of his three children from his previous marriage, which leaves them excluded from receiving any money after his death. Considering that his Will and Trusts were last altered almost 20 years before his death, it would be very difficult for his children to prove that the Will and Trusts were not valid due to their father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Many people may wonder what can happen in this type of situation, when the person named in the Will who was supposed to receive the money dies before the person who made the Will.
Gene Hackman’s documents stated that he left all his money to his wife, Betsy Arakawa, but since his spouse did not survive him, his Will and Trust cannot be completed as originally intended. This leaves the question of where the money should go if the beneficiary is no longer alive to inherit it. Unless the Will and/or Trusts name another beneficiary, who would inherit the money, it can be redistributed under anti-lapse laws also known as intestacy laws. Gene Hackman and his wife lived in New Mexico, but New York also has intestacy laws. Intestacy laws state the way a person’s property is distributed if they do not have a proper Last Will and Testament in place. Additionally, similar to New York, New Mexico also has a law known as the “Simultaneous Death Act”, which states that when the order of death cannot be established or a person dies within one hundred and twenty (120) hours of another person, they are deemed to have passed before the other individual. The exception to this is when the order of death can be proven by “clear and convincing evidence”. In this situation, according to the medical examiner, Gene Hackman did survive his wife by more than 120 hours, so the Simultaneous Death Act would not apply when determining how his estate will be distributed.
Looking at intestacy laws in connection with Hackman and Arakawa’s deaths, we can see how the estates would be distributed if there was no Will, or if there is only one beneficiary named who predeceases the testator (the person who signs the Will). Betsy Arakawa had no children of her own, so there is no way that this money could be passed down to a child, but she was survived by her mother. Parents would be the heirs if a person had no living spouse or children. The question may arise as to what will happen to the money in her estate since she died first. Would Hackman’s estate inherit her assets as well? In this situation, Arakawa happened to have had a Will that listed a charitable trust in the event that Hackman passed before her. Although Hackman technically survived his wife, Arakawa’s Will also had a 90-day Simultaneous Death Provision, which means that if Hackman passed within ninety days of Arakawa, that he would be deemed to have passed before her for the purposes of her estate. This means that intestacy laws will not apply to Arakawa’s estate and everything in her estate will go into the charitable trust, as she intended, and will not go to Hackman’s estate.
If a person does not have a Will, or it cannot be carried out as intended, any children would then have a chance of receiving assets from the deceased person’s estate, since the intestacy laws allow the money to be passed down to living relatives in a person’s family. The law states the order in which assets are distributed when there is no living spouse. Children are first, then parents, siblings and children of any predeceased siblings, and then to other and more remote relatives. In Hackman’s case, however, if there was no other beneficiary named, the 1994 Trust would pass through Hackman’s estate and be governed by the terms of his Will. As far as we know, if Arakawa did not survive him, Hackman’s Will left everything in his estate to his 2005 Trust. When a Will leaves everything to a Trust, this is typically referred to as a “pour over” Will. It would seem, from the information available, that Hackman did have alternate beneficiaries listed in his 2005 Trust. The only way that Hackman’s children could potentially inherit anything from his estate, outside of being listed as beneficiaries, would be if there are any assets not accounted for in the 2005 Trust’s residuary clause, as such assets would then typically pass through the laws of intestacy. Trusts, unlike Wills, are not public documents, so only the estate’s executor, the probate court, the trustee of the 2005 Trust, and Hackman’s children actually know how Hackman’s estate will ultimately be distributed.
