By Patricia Reaney
NEW YORK – Gena Rowlands, the acclaimed American actress, three-time Emmy winner and dual Oscar nominee for her vivid portrayals of strong, troubled women in the crime drama “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 movies directed by her first husband, actor, writer and director John Cassavetes.
Nick Cassavetes revealed in June that Rowlands had Alzheimer’s, like her own mother and the character she portrayed in the 2004 film “The Notebook.”
“She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy – we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us,” her son, who directed the film, told Entertainment Weekly.
Rowlands and Cassavetes were the golden couple of independent films in the United States in the 1970s and ’80s. Cassavetes was a pioneer in cinema verite and Rowlands was his muse.
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 student Cassavetes.
“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. You can live a lot of lives and have a lot of fun and see a lot of things,” she told the New York Times in 2016. — Reuters
