Hailed as one of the greatest actresses of all time and a shining example of independent cinema, Gena Rowlands starred in groundbreaking films by her husband, director John Cassavetes, and later enchanted audiences in her son’s tearjerker The Notebook. She was 94 years old.
Rowlands’ death was confirmed Wednesday by representatives for her son, filmmaker Nick Cassavetes, who revealed earlier this year that his mother was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. TMZ reported that Rowlands died Wednesday at her home in Indian Wells, California.
Outside the studio system, husband-and-wife team John Cassavetes and Rowlands created indelible portraits of working-class strivers and little people in films such as “A Woman Under the Influence,” “Gloria” and “Faces.”
Rowlands made ten films with Cassavetes over four decades, including Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), Opening Night (1977) and Love Streams (1984).
She received an Oscar nomination for two of these films: “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974), in which she played a wife and mother who collapses under the burden of domestic harmony, and “Gloria” (1980), about a woman who helps a young boy escape the mafia.
“He had a special, compassionate interest in women and their problems in society, how they were treated and how they solved and overcame their problems. That’s why there are interesting women in all his films, and you don’t need many of them,” she told AP in 2015.
In addition to the Oscar nominations, Rowlands has received three Primetime Emmy Awards, a Daytime Emmy and two Golden Globes. In 2015, she received an honorary Oscar in recognition of her work and legacy in Hollywood. “You know what’s wonderful about being an actress? You don’t just live one life,” she said at the podium. “You live many lives.”
Rowlands was introduced to a new generation in her son’s blockbuster The Notebook, in which she played a woman whose memory is shattered and who looks back on a romance for the ages. Her younger self was played by Rachel McAdams. (She also appeared in Nick Cassavetes’ Unhook the Stars in 1996.)
In her later years, Rowlands made several appearances in films and on television, including in “The Skeleton Key” and the crime series “Monk.” Her last film appearance was in 2014, when she played a pensioner who befriends her gay dance instructor in “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.”
One of her career triumphs was in 1974’s “Woman Under the Influence,” in which she played a lower-middle-class housewife who, according to the actress, “was completely vulnerable and generous; she had no sense of her own worth.” In “Gloria” (1980), she portrayed a faded showgirl who is threatened by her ex-boyfriend, a crime boss. For both roles, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
She and Cassavetes met at the American School of Dramatic Arts when both were just starting their careers. They married four months later. In 1959, Cassavetes used his earnings from the television series Johnny Staccato to finance his first film, Shadows. The film was partly improvised, shot with natural light on New York locations on a budget of $40,000, and was praised by critics for its stark realism.
Gena (pronounced Jenna) Rowlands became a seasoned actress through live television dramas and tours in The Seven Year Itch and Time for Ginger, as well as Off-Broadway.
Her big break came when Josh Logan cast her opposite Edward G. Robinson in Paddy Chayefsky’s play Middle of the Night. Her role as a young woman in love with her much older boss earned her critics hailing her as a new star.
MGM offered her a two-picture contract per year. Her first film, a Jose Ferrer comedy, The High Cost of Loving, in which he also played the lead role, brought Rowlands comparisons to one of the great stars of the 1930s, Carole Lombard.
However, she asked to be released from her contract because she was expecting a baby. During her career, she had often disappeared from the screen for long periods of time to attend to family matters.
In addition to Nick, she and Cassavetes had two daughters, Alexandra and Zoe, who also pursued acting careers.
John Cassavetes died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1989, and Rowlands returned to acting to ease her grief. Between performances, she sometimes attended film festivals and societies to see Cassavetes films.
“I want everyone to see his films,” she said at the San Sebastian Festival in 1992. “John was unique, the most fearless person I ever knew. He had a very special view of life and people’s individuality.”
Virginia Cathryn Rowlands was born in 1930 (some sources give a later date) in Cambria, Wisconsin, where her Welsh ancestors had settled in the early 19th century. Her father was a banker and state senator. She was a withdrawn child who loved books and fantasy. Her mother supported the girl’s ambition to become an actress.
Rowlands left the University of Wisconsin in her third year to pursue an acting career in New York. Like other actors of her generation, she gained valuable experience in the emerging field of television drama in the 1950s, appearing in all the major series.
After she left her contract with MGM, she was able to choose her film roles. When she wasn’t wearing any clothes, she appeared in television series such as “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Bonanza,” “Dr. Kildare” and “The Virginian.” A high point of her career was co-starring with fellow icon Bette Davis in the 1979 television movie “Strangers.”
Her other film credits include Lonely Are the Brave with Kirk Douglas, The Spiral Road (Rock Hudson), A Child Is Waiting (with Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland, directed by Cassavetes), Two Minute Warning (Charlton Heston), Tempest (along with Cassavetes and Molly Ringwald, in her film debut) and the mother who wants to do the right thing for her children in Paul Schrader’s 1987 study of a working-class family, Light of Day.
Rowlands continued to play challenging roles in middle age and beyond. In Woody Allen’s serious drama Another Woman, she played a writer whose life is shielded from emotion until terrible events force her to confront her feelings. In the groundbreaking television film An Early Frost, she played a mother confronting her son’s AIDS.
Rowlands noted in 1992 that her roles had stuck in her memory.
“Sometimes, on those white nights, when I don’t sleep and have a lot of time to think about everything, I explore the different possibilities of different characters and what they could do now,” she said.
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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the television series “Johnny Staccato” and the release year of “Shadows.”
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New Yorker film writer Jake Coyle contributed to this report. The late Associated Press writer Bob Thomas contributed biographical material to this report.
