Gena Rowlands, the intense and beautiful dramatic actor who often worked with her husband John Cassavetes on some introspective independent films, has died. Ninety-four.
An office for Ms. Rowlands’s son, the director Nick Cassavetes, reported the death on Wednesday night. His name is Daniel Greenberg. The office didn’t say where she died when she died, or what caused her death. Her family told the press in June that Ms. Rowlands had Alzheimer‘s for five years.
Ms. Rowlands was nominated twice for Best Actress Oscars for roles she played in movies directed by John Cassavetes. These roles often involved people who were drunk, crazy, or otherwise on the edge. The first was the title part in 1974’s “A Woman Under the Influence.”
In that movie, her blue-collar husband (Peter Falk), who plays a desperate and insecure woman, locks her up because he doesn’t know what else to do. In an article for The Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert said that Ms. Rowlands was “so touchingly vulnerable to every kind of influence around her that we don’t want to tap her because she might fall apart.”
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Her second nomination was for “Gloria,” which came out in 1980 and starred her as a gangster’s mistress on the run with a child who had been left behind.
People first became aware of Cassavetes and Rowlands’ work together in the 1968 movie “Faces,” in which she played a young prostitute opposite John Marley. Fans told their friends about the movie. Renata Adler called it “a really important movie” about “the way things are,” and Roger Ebert said it was “amazing.”
After that, more Cassavetes movies came out. In 1971’s “Minnie and Moskowitz,” she played a museum worker who falls in love with a parking lot worker (Seymour Cassel). In the 1977 movie “Opening Night,” she played an actor who was haunted by the ghost of a fan who had been killed. In 1984’s “Love Streams,” she and her husb
Stunning actress Gena Rowlands has died at the age of 94, but she left an indelible impression on the world first. Look back at her stunning photos, life and career. https://t.co/7lmf89WpII
— Woman’s World Magazine (@WomansWorldUS) August 16, 2024
and played brother and sister in their last movie together.
Ms. Rowlands won three Primetime Emmy Awards for performances in television movies. She won the first for the title role in “The Betty Ford Story” (1987), the second for her portrayal of a destitute widow who takes in a homeless woman in “Face of a Stranger” (1991), and the third for her role as the mother of a troubled young woman (Uma Thurman) in “Hysterical Blindness” (2003). She also received a 2004 Daytime Emmy for her work in “The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie,” a drama about an eccentric widow and a self-destructive teenager.
She was nominated for five more Emmys. The first was for her part as the mother of a young man with AIDS in “An Early Frost” (1985), which was one of the first popular movies to deal with the problem. The last was for a guest appearance on the detective show “Monk” in 2009.
She sometimes said that her career might have gone in a very different direction if she hadn’t married Mr. Cassavetes. She said she could have been the blonde in love comedies. But, she said, being pretty was so popular in Hollywood that it didn’t matter. The magazine People called her one of the most beautiful people in the world when she was 69 years old. When asked for beauty tips, she said, “Sunglasses are the key.” You can go to the market with sunglasses and lipstick.
Gena (she said her first name was “Jenna”) Rowlands was born Virginia Cathryn Rowlands on June 19, 1930, in Madison, Wisconsin. Her parents were Edwin M. Rowlands, a banker and state lawmaker, a
Iconic actress Gena Rowlands has sadly died at the age of 94. 💔 https://t.co/0NYRESvFEC
— WLOS (@WLOS_13) August 15, 2024
and Mary Allen (Neal) Rowlands, a painter who later became known as Lady Rowlands in movies.
The family moved from Cambria, a neighborhood of Madison, to Washington, D.C., in 1939. Mr. Rowlands worked in the Agriculture Department under Franklin D. Roosevelt, so they moved there.
In Arlington, Virginia, Virginia finished high school and went to the University of Wisconsin. However, she dropped out to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, where she began her career. She promised herself she wouldn’t get married or have kids, but when she met Mr. Cassavetes, a new graduate of the school, she changed her mind. They got married in 1954 and stayed together until he died in 1989, aged 59.
In 1954, Ms. Rowlands made her TV debut on the show “Top Secret,” which was made up of 15-minute stories about secret spies. In 1955, she was a guest star on eight TV shows. One of them was a version of “The Great Gatsby” on “Robert Montgomery Presents,” in which she played Tom Buchanan’s shady lover Myrtle Wilson.
The next year, she made her only Broadway appearance, playing the lead role opposite Edward G. Robinson in Paddy Chayefsky’s play “Middle of the Night,” which is about a clothing maker in his 50s who falls in love with a woman
The Notebook actress Gena Rowlands has passed away at 94. pic.twitter.com/0XGpHIuzoc
— E! News (@enews) August 15, 2024
in her 20s. In his review of the play for The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson said that her acting was “especially good.”
After that, Hollywood called. MGM hired her, and her first movie role was as José Ferrer’s wife in the 1958 comedy “The High Cost of Loving.” Among her early movies were “Lonely Are the Brave,” a contemporary western with Kirk Douglas, “The Spiral Road,” in which she played the religious fiancée of a young doctor (Rock Hudson), and “A Child Is Waiting,” in which she played the mother of a boy with autism, along with Judy Garland and Burt Lancaster. They worked together on that movie, which was the first one.
She always went back to watching TV. She was in a lot of TV shows in the 1960s, including “Bonanza,” “77 Sunset Strip,” “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.,” “Dr. Kildare,” and more. She also played the seductive socialite Adrienne Van Leyden on the nighttime soap opera “Peyton Place,” who dies after falling down the stairs at the Peyton mansion.
In later years, she was in a scene with Ben Gazzara in the 2006 movie “Paris, Je T’Aime,” and she played James Garner in the 2004 movie “The Notebook,” which was directed by her son Nick was about a long marriage that can survive anything except dementia. The last movies she was in were “Unfortunate Circumstances,” a comedy short about a psychologi
American actress Gena Rowlands has died at the age of 94, her son has said
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 15, 2024
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st, and “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks,” a comedic drama about an older woman and her hot young dance teacher.
She was given a special Oscar in 2015.
Robert Forrest is a retired billionaire who Ms. Rowlands married in 2012. Along with her son, she also survives; full information on survivors was not known right away.
In a 1997 interview with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. Rowlands talked about how she raised her children and said, “We made half our movies in the house.” “And every time the kids got out of the bathroom with a toothbrush, they would trip over a wire.” They thought that was how everyone lived.
The Los Angeles Times asked Ms. Rowlands in 1992 about a strange side effect of the psychological work she did to get ready for parts. She said that at some point, she started to dream of herself.
“The dreams don’t always have anything to do with the script either,” she added. “Only her and I know about it.”
In the same conversation, Ms. Rowlands strongly disagreed with the idea that she felt bad about giving up her life for her art. She said, “People who aren’t artists are the ones who make sacrifices.” “I don’t mind that artists find the best life in the world by accident.”
