By Patricia Reaney
NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Reuters) – Gena Rowlands, the acclaimed American actress who won three Emmy Awards and was nominated for two Oscars for her vivid portrayals of strong, tormented 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 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 and director John Cassavetes.
Nick Cassavetes revealed in June that Rowlands suffered from Alzheimer’s, like the actress’s mother and the character Rowlands played in the 2004 film “The Notebook.”
“She’s in the throes of dementia. And it’s crazy: We lived it, she played it, and now it’s on us,” her son, who directed the film, told Entertainment Weekly.
Rowlands and John Cassavetes were the golden couple of independent cinema in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. Cassavetes was a pioneer of reality cinema 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 force,” said the New Yorker in 2016.
The tall, blonde actress made 10 films with Cassavetes before his death in 1989, including the 1977 psychological drama “Opening Night,” the 1968 marriage saga “Faces” and 1984’s “Currents of Love.”
“There was always a manic energy to her performances 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 protagonist of Cassavetes’ 1980 film “Gloria,” she rescued and protected an orphaned boy from mobsters bent on killing him.
“Rowlands’ sublime performance is almost unparalleledly driven by the ‘id’: Her troubled heroines operate from such deep reserves of need that only Rowlands can access, that she doesn’t simply claim moments but wrestles with them to draw out even harder layers of authenticity,” critic Matthew Eng wrote on the Tribeca News website in 2016.
Although she did not win an Oscar for either role, Rowlands did receive an Academy Honorary Award in 2015.
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 actor John 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 and 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 “The Other Woman,” and on television after Cassavetes’ death.
She won best actress Emmys for 1987’s “The Betty Ford Story” and the 1992 drama “The Face of a Stranger” and took home the trophy for best supporting actress in a miniseries or movie for 2002’s “Hysterical Blindness.”
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 so exciting and wonderful because you were doing what you really wanted to do,” she said of acting and making independent films.
(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Javier Leira and Ricardo Figueroa)
