Born June 19, 1930 in Madison, Wisconsin to a state legislator and his painter wife, Virginia Cathryn (Gena) Rowlands moved with her family to Washington, D.C. in 1939 when her father became a member of the Department of Agriculture. They moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1942.
Rowlands attended the University of Wisconsin from 1947-1950 and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, graduating in 1952. She married fellow student actor John Cassavetes in 1954, the same year that she made both her TV and Broadway debuts. She made the latter opposite Edward G. Robinson in Middle of the Night. Kim Novak and Fredric March played their roles in the 1959 film version.
Rowlands made her film debut opposite José Ferrer in 1958’s The High Cost of Loving. In 1962, she starred opposite Kirk Douglas in Lonely Are the Brave and The Spiral Road opposite Rock Hudson. In 1963, she held her own against Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland in John Cassavetes’ A Child Is Waiting, the first of ten films she made with her husband.
The other Rowlands-Cassavetes films were 1968’s Faces, which he also directed; 1969’s Machine Gun McCain directed by Juliano Montaldo; 1971’s Minnie & Moskowitz for which he directed her to a New York Film Critics nomination; 1974’s A Woman Under the Influence for which he directed her to an Oscar nomination; 1976’s Two-Minute Warning directed by Larry Peerce; 1977’s Opening Night for which he directed her to a Golden Globe nominations; Gloria to which he directed her to a second Oscar nomination; 1982’s Tempest directed by Paul Mazursky; and 1984’s Love Streams, the last film he directed.
In 1985, Rowlands received the first of eight Emmy nominations as the mother of AIDS sufferer Aidan Quinn in An Early Frost. She won her first of three Emmys for 1986’s The Betty Ford Story. In 1988, she received some of her best notices for Woody Allen’s Another Woman in which she led an all-star cast.
John Cassavetes died in 1989.
Rowlands won her second Emmy for 1991’s Face of a Stranger the same year she appeared on the big screen in Once Around. Subsequent successes included 1995’s The Neon Bible and Something to Talk About, and 1996’s Unhook the Stars, directed by her son, Nick Cassavetes for which she received a SAG nomination for Best Actress. In 1998 alone, she had major roles in Hope Floats, The Mighty, and Playing by Heart and three made-for-TV movies, Best Friends for Life, Paulie, and Grace & Glorie.
The actress won a Satellite Award for 2004’s The Notebook, again directed by Nick Cassavetes, playing a victim of Alzheimer’s, the disease which would eventually affect her own life.
In 2012, Rowlands married retired businessman Robert Forrest. In 2015, received an honorary Oscar for her cumulative screen work.
Gena Rowlands died of complications from Alzheimer’s on August 14, 2024 at 94.
ESSENTIAL FILMS
A CHILD IS WAITING (1963), directed by John Cassavetes
This was the first film in which Cassavetes directed Rowlands. It was the actress’s third film. It was also coincidentally the third that Cassavetes directed. Role. Rowlands is very moving as the mother of a mentally impaired 12-year-old boy played by Bruce Ritchey. Acting honors, however, go to Ritchey in his only film and Judy Garland in her first film since her Oscar nominated role in Judgment at Nuremberg. Garland plays a caring teacher who clashes with Burt Lancaster, the psychologist who runs the institute where the children are housed. Steven Hill is Rowlands’ emotionally distant husband. It was Garland’s next-to-last film.
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974), directed by John Cassavetes
Both Rowlands and Cassavetes received Oscar nominations, he as director, she as leading actress. The film, which is about a woman whose mental illness puts a strain on their marriage. Peter Falk played her husband with Lady Rowlands and Katherine Cassavetes, the mothers of Rowlands and Cassavetes, respectively, playing the mothers of Rowlands and Falk. The film was finished in 1972, but Cassavetes couldn’t find a distributor until Martin Scorsese threatened to pull his film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore from the New York Film Festival unless Cassavetes’ film was also given a slot. Alice’s Ellen Burstyn won the Oscar over Rowlands.
GLORIA (1980), directed by John Cassavetes
Rowlands became the only actress to receive two Oscar nominations for films directed by her husband with this fast-moving gangster yarn in which she plays a streetwise ex-con-moll who becomes the protectress of a young boy whose family has been killed by gangsters. Cassavetes had written the script the year before with no plans to direct but when Barbra Streisand pulled out of the role, the studio cast Rowlands in the role with the understanding that he would direct. It was the only film of child actor John Adames who won a highly protested Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor in a tie with Laurence Olivier in The Jazz Singer.
UNHOOK THE STARS (1996), directed by Nick Cassavetes
Both Rowlands and Marisa Tomei were nominated for SAG awards for their performances in this heartwarming drama about an older woman played by Rowlands for finds new meaning in her life when she agrees to babysit neighbor Tomei’s son after her daughter moves out of her house. Jake Lloyd, three years later the young star of Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace, made his film debut as Tomei’s son winning role over 1,400 other candidates. The film, which also features Gerard Depardieu as Rowlands’ new love, was the directorial debut of Rowlands’ son who previously had been known as an actor.
THE NOTEBOOK (2004), directed by Nick Cassavetes
Nicholas Sparks’ highly manipulative novel has had amazing staying power with the film and now, twenty years later, the Broadway musical expanding the novel’s popularity. Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling became overnight sensations as young lovers while screen legends Rowlands and James Garner added one more fondly remembered performance to their already legendary careers as older versions of the same characters. Garner was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award and Rowlands won a Satellite award. Rowlands later developed the Alzheimer’s Disease that her character in the film was afflicted with.
GENA ROWLANDS AND OSCAR
A Woman Under the Influence (1974) – nominated – Best Actress
Gloria (1980) – nominated – Best Actress
Honorary Award (2015) – Oscar – Career Achievement
