by Patricia Renee
NEW YORK (AP) — Acclaimed American actress Gena Rowlands, a three-time Emmy winner and two-time Oscar nominee for her vibrant portrayals of strong, troubled women in the crime dramas “Gloria” and “A Woman Under the Influence,” has died at the age of 94, Entertainment Weekly reported on Wednesday, citing her son Nick Cassavetes.
Rowlands appeared in dozens of films during a career that began in stage and television in the 1950s and included award-winning roles in films directed by her first husband, actor, writer and director John Cassavetes.
Nick Cassavetes revealed in June that Rowlands has Alzheimer’s, as did his own mother and the character she played in the 2004 film “The Notebook.”
“He’s got full-blown dementia. And it’s so weird — we lived it, he lived it, and now it’s on us,” his son, the film’s director, told Entertainment Weekly.
Rowlands and Cassavetes were the golden couple of independent films in the United States in the 1970s and ’80s. Cassavetes was a pioneer of cinéma vérité and Rowlands was his inspiration.
The New Yorker stated in 2016, “Independent filmmaking had existed before Cassavetes, but Cassavetes, together with Rowlands, succeeded in creating an independent cinema that borrowed from Hollywood—not in plot or style, but in the charm and dramatic power of the actors.”
The tall, blonde actress made 10 films with Cassavetes before his death in 1989, including the psychological drama “Opening Night,” the marital saga “Faces” and 1984’s “Love Streams,” in which she played his sister.
Awards website Golden Derby said of Rowlands, “Her performances in her late husband’s films always had a manic energy, a fear of failure and a desire for love.”
In “A Woman Under the Influence”, which Cassavetes originally wrote as a play and is considered one of her best performances, Rowlands played Maybelle Longhetti, a housewife struggling with mental illness.
As the tough, determined title character in Cassavetes’ 1980 film “Gloria,” he rescued and protected a young, orphaned boy from bullies who were intent on killing him.
Critic Matthew Eng wrote on the Tribeca News website in 2016, “Rowlands’s masterful acting is phenomenally id-driven: Her troubled heroines operate from a deep reservoir of need that only Rowlands can access, not just claiming moments but grappling with them to peel away even more difficult layers of authenticity.”
Although she didn’t win an Oscar for either role, Rowlands received an Honorary Academy Award in 2015.
always wanted to act
Virginia Katherine “Gena” Rowlands was born in Cambria, Wisconsin, on June 19, 1930. 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 classmate Cassavetes.
“I always wanted to be an actress; I read a lot when I was younger, and that showed me there was so much more out there. You can live so many different lives and have a lot of fun and see so many things,” she told The New York Times in 2016.
Rowlands worked in regional theater and TV 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 said of her husband to film critic Roger Ebert in 2016. “The freedom John gave his actors was astonishing.”
Rowlands continued to work in films, including Woody Allen’s 1988 drama “Another Woman,” and also worked in TV after Cassavetes’ death.
She won Emmy Awards for best actress for “The Betty Ford Story” and the drama “Face of a Stranger” and best supporting actress in a miniseries or movie for “Hysterical Blindness.”
The independent film icon found a new audience when she returned to the big screen in 2004 as an 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.
About acting and making independent films, he said, “It’s a difficult life, but it’s very exciting and wonderful, because you’re doing what you really want to do.”
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