Blonde hair, frosty blue eyes and a seductive smile: Gena Rowlands was considered the queen of American indie films. “Gena is subtle, delicate, she is a miracle. She is direct. And unwavering. She can do anything,” director John Cassavetes, who died in 1989, once enthused. The two were married for more than three decades, and Cassavetes discovered Rowlands and was her biggest fan. With successful films such as “The Influence” (1974) and “Gloria” (1980), he made her an award-winning and Oscar-nominated star. Rowlands has now died at the age of 94.
The artist agency WME, which represents Rowland’s son Nick Cassavetes, confirmed the actress’ death to the German Press Agency. She died on Wednesday in Indian Wells, Southern California, US media reported.
Director Nick Cassavetes (65) announced in June that his mother had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for several years. He brought Rowlands in front of the camera in 2004 for the romantic drama “The Notebook”. In the best-selling film adaptation, she played an old lady named Allie who suffers from Alzheimer’s in a nursing home. The film looks back at the young Allie (Rachel McAdams) and her great love Noah (Ryan Gosling).
© dpa/Dick Strobel
The actress, who has been married to businessman Robert Forrest since 2012, worked well into old age. “I’m very happy that I made it to this age,” she told the Huffington Post at the age of 84. “When you say it out loud, it sounds very old. And it is. But you can still have a lot of fun.”
Multifaceted characters and Oscar-nominated films
Born in 1930 in Madison in the northern US state of Wisconsin, Rowlands’ family has strong ties to the film industry. Her mother, Lady Rowlands, was also an actress and both parents supported her career plans. Rowlands and Cassavetes’ three children – Nick, Alexandra and Zoe – also followed their parents into the film business.
She loves acting because it means “you live 100 lives,” Rowlands told the Los Angeles Times in 2014. “You don’t have to spend your whole life with yourself.” Her characters have always been extremely multifaceted – whether the call girl in “Faces” (1968), Cassavetes’ first success, the lonely museum employee Minerva in “Minnie and Moskowitz” (1971), the philosophy professor for Woody Allen in “Another Woman” (1988) or the Hollywood agent for Jim Jarmusch in “Night on Earth” (1991).
© dpa/Douglas C. Pizac
She never really thought about films, but only about the theater, said Rowlands. “But then John started to get interested in independent films and everything changed.” When they met at drama school in New York, it was love at first sight for Rowlands and Cassavetes. They married in 1954. The innovative loner wanted to be so radically independent of the big money – and the constraints – in Hollywood that the couple had problems financing their films together. The two often had to tour from coast to coast in the USA with a few friends to get cinema owners and the public interested in their projects.
“Cinema was our life. They were wild, intense years. The best of my life.” The shock when Cassavetes died in 1989 at the age of 59 after a long illness lasted a long time. She felt like a zombie, Rowlands later said. It took almost two years before she could pull herself together to stand in front of a camera again. Looking back, she doesn’t regret anything, Rowlands once said. “I was incredibly lucky. I really was.”
For her roles in the successful films “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974) and “Gloria” (1980), both directed by her husband, she was nominated for an Oscar, but came away empty-handed. In 2015, the film academy honored the then 85-year-old actress with an honorary Oscar in recognition of her life’s work.