HomeInternational NewsLegendary actress Gena Rowlands dies at 94, known for powerful roles.

Legendary actress Gena Rowlands dies at 94, known for powerful roles.

Gena Rowlands, the acclaimed American actress known for her powerful portrayals of strong and troubled women, has passed away at the age of 94. Her death was confirmed on Wednesday by Entertainment Weekly, which cited her son, Nick Cassavetes. Rowlands gained significant recognition for her roles in the films “Gloria” and “A Woman Under the Influence,” and she was a three-time Emmy Award winner and an Academy Award nominee.

Rowlands’ career began on stage and television in the 1950s, and she appeared in numerous films, many of which were directed by her first husband, John Cassavetes. In June, Nick Cassavetes revealed that Rowlands had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, similar to her mother and the character she portrayed in the 2004 film “The Notebook.” “She is in full dementia. And it’s so crazy – we have lived it, she played it, and now it is upon us,” said her son, who also directed “The Notebook.”

Rowlands and Cassavetes were regarded as the golden couple of independent film in the United States during the 1970s and 80s. Cassavetes was a pioneer of cinéma vérité, a filmmaking technique that aims to capture natural reactions and events, while Rowlands served as his muse. The New Yorker described in 2016 how Cassavetes and Rowlands managed to create an independent cinema that drew from Hollywood but did so not in plot or style, but in acting sound and dramatic intensity.

The tall, blonde actress starred in ten films with Cassavetes before his death in 1989, including the psychological drama “Opening Night” (1977), the marital epic “Faces” (1968), and “Love Streams” (1984), in which she played his sister. According to Golden Derby, she always had a manic energy in her performances and a fear of failure.

In “A Woman Under the Influence,” which Cassavetes originally wrote as a play, Rowlands portrayed Mabel Longhetti, a housewife struggling with mental illness. In the title role of “Gloria” (1980), she saves a young abandoned boy from mafia gangsters who want him dead. Although she did not win an Oscar for these roles, she received an honorary Oscar in 2015.

Virginia Cathryn “Gena” Rowlands was born on June 19, 1930, in Cambria, Wisconsin. Her father was a banker and politician, while 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 John Cassavetes.

Rowlands made her Broadway debut in “Middle of the Night” in 1956, and two years later, she landed her first film role in “The High Cost of Loving.” She continued to work in film and television after Cassavetes’ death and won Emmy Awards for “The Betty Ford Story” (1987) and “Face of a Stranger” (1992).

Rowlands found a new audience when she re-emerged on the big screen in 2004 as the older version of Rachel McAdams’ character in “The Notebook.” She was married to Cassavetes from 1954 until his death and had three children. In 2012, she married businessman Robert Forrest.

“It’s a complicated life, but it was so exciting and wonderful because you did what you truly wanted to do,” she said of her life as an actress and within independent film.

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