Friends of the late Gene Hackman told Fox News that he kept busy in the years before his death by taking golf lessons, practicing boxing, and other hobbies like painting and flying before his Alzheimer's diagnosis.
Mike Anaya worked with Hackman on boxing after an injury as part of his rehab.
Anaya said Hackman's background in the military meant he knew how to stand and throw punches. He also shared that Hackman asked Anaya to call him Gene when they got to know each other and that he was a "good man."
Golf instructor Mike Putnam agreed, saying he "enjoyed his time with both Hackmans and that it was a "nice, fun relationship to have."
Hackman, who lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, made friends with Stephen Marshall, a retired FBI agent who trained them as part of a citizen's academy.
Marshall considered Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa Hackman friends and they socialized together until a few months before their deaths in February.
Gene was "starting to have some issues with age. And so I was seeing them less and less often. They were going out less," Marshall recalled.
Marshall also said Hackman had been bothered by the idea of getting old and didn't like seeing old movies where he looked younger.
He refused an invitation to see a screening of "Night Moves," one of his older movies, because he didn't want any comparisons with his younger self.
"When we went out, he didn't want to advertise who he was," he said. "I remember the first time we went out, we're walking down the street in Santa Fe, and I noticed people noticing him. And I said, ‘Do you get used to the idea of people going, "Hey, that’s Gene Hackman"’? And he said, "Yeah, but now they add, ‘And he got so old.’"
"So I thought he looked much younger," Marshall added. "I thought he looked great, but he was concerned that he had aged and that bothered him."
Investigators said Hackman died from heart disease and not getting needed medications to treat it about a week after his wife died from hantavirus, a disease contracted from contact with an infected rodent or its excretions.
Because of his Alzheimer's, he might not have been aware enough of his situation to help himself.
Apparently, the couple had become reclusive and been out of contact with family and friends for a while, so no one thought to check up on them.
