Gena Rowlands, a film icon who appeared with her late husband John Cassavetes in some of the most acclaimed films of the 20th century and was best known for “The Notebook,” died on August 14 at the age of 94.
TMZ Her death was reported at her home in Indian Wells, California, surrounded by her family, including her husband of 12 years, Robert, and her daughter, Alexandra Cassavetes.
Her son, actor and director Nick Cassavetes, was also reportedly in the area this week.
In a cruel twist of fate, her family recently announced that she had Alzheimer’s disease, the same illness that afflicted Ally in “The Notebook.” Her son Nick, who directed the box office hit, confirmed in June that she had had “full-blown dementia” for five years at that point.
She retired from acting in 2015, the same year she won an honorary Academy Award, but continued to make occasional appearances while she was still healthy.
Her career was marked by realistic, down-to-earth portrayals, often in films directed by her first husband, and she co-starred with him in “Shadows” (1959), “Children Are Expecting” (1963), “Faces” (1968), “Minnie and Moskowitz” (1971), “Influence” (1974), “Opening Night” (1977), “Gloria” (1980) and “Love Streams” (1984), helping to spur the independent film movement in the United States.
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She was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for her role in A Woman Under the Influence, and Gloria was remade in 1999 by Sidney Lumet starring Sharon Stone, but it was unsuccessful.
After her husband died of cirrhosis of the liver at age 59 in 1989, she starred with her son Nick in films such as Unhook the Stars (1996), She’s So Lovely (1997) and Yellow (2012), but it was her husband’s performance in The Notebook (2004) that really captivated audiences.
This romantic drama, based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks, stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams and tells the story of a young couple who fall in love in the ’40s, as read to a fellow care home resident (Rowlands) in the present day. At the end, Garner and Rowlands’ characters are revealed to be Gosling and McAdams’ characters, and they die together after living a long, loving life.
Born June 19, 1930 in Cambria, Wisconsin, Rowlands was the daughter of stage actress Lady Rowlands and state legislator Edwin Rowlands. She lived in Washington, DC, and Minneapolis, and later attended the University of Wisconsin and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before moving to New York to pursue an acting career.
She toured with the “Seven Year Itch” troupe in the early 1950s and in 1956 starred on Broadway in “Midnight.”
On television, she was a series regular on Top Secret (1954-1956), a fixture on hour-long drama series. Other early television appearances included Laramie (1959), Riverboat (1959), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962-1964), 77 Sunset Strip (1962), and Peyton Place (1967), in which she played the scheming socialite Adrienne Van Leyden in 39 episodes.
She co-starred with Bette Davis in the television movie Strangers (1979) and with Jane Alexander in an earlier film about lesbian parents, Thursday’s Child (1983).
She won Emmy Awards for The Betty Ford Story (1987), Face of a Stranger (1992), and Hysterical Blindness (2003), and won a second Golden Globe for The Betty Ford Story, and a Daytime Emmy Award for The Incredible Mrs. Richie (2004).
Rowlands made her film debut in the 1958 film The Price of Love.
In addition to Cassavetes’s films, he has also worked on films such as “The Lonely Man” (1962), “Spiral Road” (1962), “Tony Roma’s” (1967), “The Brink’s Job” (1978), “The Tempest” (1982), “Light of Day” (1987), Woody Allen’s “Another Woman” (1988), Jim Jarmusch’s “Night on Earth” (1991), Lasse Hallström’s “Once Around” (1991), and “Samuel L. His filmography includes Sing to Talk About (1995), The Neon Bible (1995), Hope Floats (1998), The Mighty (1998), Playing by Heart (1998), Weekend (1999), Skeleton Key (2005), and his daughter Zoe Cassavetes’s Broken English (2007), Parts Per Billion (2014), and Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (2014).
Cheyenne Jackson, who co-starred with him in “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks,” Instagram“Gena Rowlands was one in a million. I was her last leading lady, in a little movie called (her words) ‘Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.’ Being with her was magical. She regaled me with tales of old Hollywood and her adventures with John. I asked her everything I could think of and she answered all. She doted on her children and enjoyed being an artist. What a consummate actress. Always trying to get to the heart of the scene. The heart of it. Rest in peace. The GOAT.”
Her last work was the short film ‘Unfortunate Circumstances’, released in 2017.
Rowlands is survived by her second husband and her children Nick, Alexandra and Zoe Cassavetes.
