Gena Rowlands, the acclaimed American actress, three-time Emmy winner and 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.
Rowlands, whose death was reported on Wednesday by Entertainment Weekly citing her son Nick Cassevetes, 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, a technique that aimed to capture natural reactions and events, and Rowlands was his muse.
“Independent filmmaking existed before Cassavetes, but Cassavetes, working with Rowlands, managed to make an independent cinema that borrowed from Hollywood – not in plots or styles but in actorly allure and dramatic power,” The New Yorker said in 2016.
The tall, blonde actress made 10 films with Cassavetes before his death in 1989, including the psychological drama Opening Night (1977), the marital saga Faces (1968) and 1984’s Love Streams, in which she played his sister.
“There was always a manic energy to the performances she gave in her late husband’s films, a fear of failure, a desire to love,” the awards website Golden Derby said of Rowlands.
In A Woman Under the Influence, which Cassavetes originally wrote as a play and which is considered among her best performances, Rowlands played Mabel Longhetti, a housewife struggling with mental illness.
United Arab Emirates Dirham Exchange Rate