Gena Rowlands, the two-time Oscar-nominated star of Gloria and A Woman Under The Influence as well as The Notebook, has died. She was 94.
Rowlands earned widespread renown for her performance as a mother wrestling with mental illness in husband John Cassavetes’ 1974 drama A Woman Under The Influence, for which she won a Golden Globe.
She received her second lead actress Academy Award nomination in 1981 as a tough woman who protects her neighbour from The Mob in Cassavetes’ Gloria.
Rowlands had met Cassavetes in her early television days. They were married in 1954 and went on to make 10 films together.
In 2004 Rowlands starred in her son Nick Cassavetes’ romance The Notebook as a woman with demantia opposite James Garner, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. Earlier this year her son announced she had been living with Alzheimer’s Disease for five years.
Film roles included Woody Allen’s Another Woman, Iain Softley’s horror The Skeleton Key, a segment of Paris, I Love You, and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.
Born in Wisconsin in June 1930, Rowlands moved frequently with the family depending on her banker and state legislator father’s job postings. She studied drama in New York and debuted on stage in The Seven Year Itch in the early 1950s.
Television roles followed with the likes of Top Secret, Bonanza and Peyton Place and her film debut came in José Ferrer’s 1958 workplace satire The High Cost Of Loving. She won three Emmys for Hysterical Blindness, Face of A Stranger, and The Betty Ford Story.
In 2016 the Academy presented Rowlands with an honorary award.
She is survived by her children, Nick, Alexandra and Zoe Cassavetes.
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