Gena Rowlands, a renowned actress from the United States who was best known for her roles in the films of her first husband, director John Cassavetes, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 94, as reported by US media outlets.
Rowlands passed away at her residence in Indian Wells, California, surrounded by her family, according to TMZ.
Although no official cause of death has been announced, Rowlands’s son Nick Cassavetes mentioned in June that she had been battling Alzheimer’s disease for the past five years, as reported by the New York Times.
Rowlands starred in 10 films directed by John Cassavetes and was married to him for nearly 35 years until his passing in 1989.
From the 1960s onwards, the couple created a captivating and intense on-screen partnership that spanned three decades, exploring themes of passion and self-destruction amidst a backdrop of alcohol and infidelity.
One of her most acclaimed roles was in “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974), where Rowlands portrayed the descent of a housewife into mental illness, earning her the first of two Oscar nominations.
Woody Allen once said of the actress, “Incapable of an unreal moment,” as she starred in his 1988 film “Another Woman.”
“Whatever I say about Gena isn’t enough because she’s so incredible,” remarked Winona Ryder, as quoted in the LA Times in 1992 when the two appeared together in Jim Jarmusch’s “Night on Earth.”
– A storied career –
Born on June 19, 1930, in Cambria, Wisconsin, Rowlands grew up in a cultured middle-class family with a state senator father and a mother who was a painter and occasional actress.
She attended the American Academy of Drama in New York and met Cassavetes in 1953, whom she married a year later.
Their collaboration produced memorable performances, with the pinnacle arguably being “A Woman Under the Influence,” which also garnered an Oscar nomination for Cassavetes as director.
Rowlands delivered a captivating performance as Mabel, a housewife who spirals into madness after years of complex dominance by her silent, hardworking husband played by Peter Falk.
Following Cassavetes’s death in 1989 due to alcoholism-related liver failure, Rowlands continued to work in films and television, earning four Emmy awards.
She and Cassavetes had three children, all of whom pursued careers in film and television. Her son Nick directed her in “The Notebook” alongside Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in 2004.
In 2012, she married retired businessman Robert Forrest and received an honorary Academy Award in 2015, the same year she retired from acting.
jgc-eab/aha
