Gena Rowlands, the acclaimed American actress, three-time Emmy winner and Oscar nominee for her vivid portrayals of strong, troubled women in the crime drama Gloria and A Woman Under the Influence, has died at the age of 94.
Rowlands, whose death was reported Wednesday by Entertainment Weekly citing her son Nick Cassevetes, starred in dozens of films during a career that began on stage and television in the 1950s and included award-winning roles in films directed by her first husband, actor-writer-director John Cassavetes.
Nick Cassavetes revealed in June that Rowlands had Alzheimer's, like his own mother and the character she played in the 2004 film The Notebook.
“She is in the throes of dementia. And it’s crazy: She lived it, she acted it, and now it’s our turn,” her son, who directed the film, told Entertainment Weekly.
Rowlands and Cassavetes were the golden couple of independent cinema in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. Cassavetes was a pioneer of cinéma vérité, a technique that sought to capture natural reactions and events, and Rowlands was his muse.
“Independent cinema existed before Cassavetes, but Cassavetes, working with Rowlands, managed to make an independent cinema that borrowed from Hollywood, not in plots or styles, but in acting appeal and dramatic power,” The New Yorker said in 2016.
The tall, blonde actress made 10 films with Cassavetes before his death in 1989, including the psychological drama Opening Night (1977), the marriage saga Faces (1968) and 1984's Love Streams, in which she played his sister.
“There was always a manic energy to the performances she gave in her late husband’s films, a fear of failure, a desire to love,” the Golden Derby awards website said of Rowlands.
In A Woman Under the Influence, which Cassavetes originally wrote as a play and is considered one of her finest performances, Rowlands played Mabel Longhetti, a housewife struggling with mental illness.
As the tough, determined main character in Cassavetes' 1980 film Gloria, he rescued and protected a young orphan from mobsters determined to kill him.
Although she did not win an Oscar for either role, Rowlands received an honorary Academy Award in 2015.
I always wanted to act
Virginia Cathryn “Gena” Rowlands was born on June 19, 1930, in Cambria, Wisconsin. Her father was a banker and politician and her mother was an actress.
After college, she moved to New York, where she studied drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and met fellow student Cassavetes.
“I always wanted to be an actress. I read a lot when I was little and that showed me that there were other things to do. You can live many lives, have a lot of fun and see many things,” she told The New York Times in 2016.
Rowlands worked in regional theater and television before making her Broadway debut in Middle of the Night in 1956. Two years later she landed her first film role in The High Cost of Loving and appeared in Cassavetes' directorial debut, Shadows.
“It wasn’t like working for anybody else,” she told film critic Roger Ebert of her husband in 2016. “The freedom that John gave his actors was amazing.”
Rowlands continued to work in films, including Woody Allen's 1988 drama Another Woman, and on television after Cassavetes' death.
She won Best Actress Emmy Awards for The Betty Ford Story (1987) and the drama Face of a Stranger (1992) and took home the trophy for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Hysterical Blindness (2002).
The independent film icon found a new audience when she returned to the big screen in 2004 as the older version of actress Rachel McAdams' character in The Notebook.
Rowlands was married to Cassavetes from 1954 until his death. They had three children. In 2012, she married businessman Robert Forrest.
“It’s a complicated life, but it was very exciting and wonderful because you were doing what you really wanted to do,” she said of acting and making independent films.
