The four-time Emmy winner was known for her portrayals of strong women. She was often directed by her husband, John Cassavetes, and was introduced to a new generation of film fans with her son’s film, ‘The Notebook’.
ADVERTISEMENTGena Rowlands, hailed as one of the greatest actors to ever practice the craft and a guiding light in independent cinema as a star in groundbreaking movies by her director husband, John Cassavetes, and who later charmed audiences in her son's tear-jerker The Notebook, has died. She was 94.
Rowlands' death was confirmed by representatives for her son, filmmaker Nick Cassavetes. He revealed earlier this year that his mother had Alzheimer’s disease.
TMZ reported that Rowlands died Wednesday at her home in Indian Wells, California.
Rowlands was born in Wisconsin in June 1930.
After college she moved to New York, where she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
"I always wanted to be an actress; I read so much when I was little, and it revealed to me there were other things to be," she told The New York Times in 2016.
It was at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts that she met her husband, a fellow student.
In 1960, Cassavetes used his earnings from the TV series Johnny Stacatto to finance his first film, Shadows. Partly improvised, shot with natural light on New York locations with a $40,000 budget, it was applauded by critics for its stark realism.
Operating outside the studio system, the husband-and-wife team of John Cassavetes and Rowlands created indelible portraits of working-class strivers and small-timers in such films as A Woman Under the Influence, Gloria and Faces.
Rowlands made 10 films across four decades with Cassavetes, including Minnie and Moskowitz in 1971, Opening Night in 1977 and Love Streams in 1984.
She earned two Oscar nods for two of them: 1974's A Woman Under the Influence, in which she played a wife and mother cracking under the burden of domestic harmony, and Gloria in 1980, about a woman who helps a young boy escape the mob.
In addition to the Oscar nominations, Rowlands earned three Primetime Emmy Awards, one Daytime Emmy and two Golden Globes. She was awarded an honorary Academy Award in 2015 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.”
John Cassavetes died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1989, and Rowlands returned to acting to assuage her grief. Between assignments she sometimes attended film festivals and societies for Cassavetes screenings.
“I want everyone to see his films,” she said at the San Sebastian Festival in 1992. “John was one of a kind, the most totally fearless person I’ve ever known. He had a very specific view of life and the individuality of people.”
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A new generation was introduced to Rowlands in her son's blockbuster The Notebook, in which she played a woman whose memory is ravaged, looking back on a romance for the ages. Her younger self was portrayed by Rachel McAdams.
In her later years, Rowlands made several appearances in films and TV, including in The Skeleton Key and the detective series Monk. Her last appearance in a movie was in 2014, playing a retiree who befriends her gay dance instructor in Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.
Her other movies included 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 (co-starring with Cassavetes and Molly Ringwald, in her screen debut) and the mother who wants to do right by her children in Paul Schrader’s 1987 study of a blue-collar family Light of Day.
