Gena Rowlands (born June 19,
1930) is an American
actress of film, stage and television. She
collaborated with her actor-director husband
John Cassavetes on ten films.
Early years
Born as
Virginia Cathryn Rowlands in Madison,
Wisconsin
, Rowlands was raised in Cambria
. Her father, Edwin Myrwyn Rowlands, was a
banker and a state legislator, and her mother, Mary Allen (née Neal), was a painter and housewife originally from Arkansas
.
The family
moved to Washington,
D.C.
in 1939 when Edwin was appointed to a position in
the United States Department of
Agriculture
, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin
in 1942 when he was appointed as branch manager of
the Office of Price
Administration, and later to Minneapolis, Minnesota
. Gena attended the University of
Wisconsin
from 1947 to 1950, where she was a popular student
already renowned for her beauty. She left for New York City
to study drama at the American Academy of Dramatic
Arts.
Career
Stage and television
In the early 1950s, Rowlands performed with
repertory theatre companies and at the
Provincetown Playhouse.
She made
her Broadway
debut in The
Seven Year Itch and toured in a national production of the
play. In 1956, she starred in
Middle of the Night
opposite
Edward G. Robinson.
Rowlands guest starred on such anthology television series as
Robert Montgomery
Presents,
Kraft
Television Theatre, and
Studio One (1955). In
1961–1962, she starred as the
deaf-mute
wife of
Robert Lansing on
87th Precinct. In
that same season, she appeared on
Target: The Corruptors!
Thereafter, she guest starred in
The Lloyd Bridges Show and
Breaking Point.
In 1967, she was cast as socialite Adrienne Van Leyden in the prime
time
soap opera Peyton Place.
In 1967, she guest starred in the
western series
The Road West, starring
Barry Sullivan,
Andrew Prine, and
Glenn Corbett. In 1975, she appeared with
Peter Falk,
Oskar
Werner and
Martha Scott in the
Columbo episode
Playback, playing wheelchair-bound Elizabeth Van Wick,
whose husband (Werner) murders her wealthy mother (Scott).
Teaming with her husband, writer/director John Cassavetes, whom she
married in 1954, Rowlands starred in the television production
Staccato. She also appeared on Cassavetes's 1959-1960
NBC detective series
Johnny Staccato as "Nina"
in the episode "Fly Baby, Fly". In 1985, Rowlands played the mother
in the critically acclaimed made-for-TV movie
An Early Frost. In recent years, she has
appeared in
Paulie,
Monk and in
Mira Nair's
HBO movie
Hysterical Blindness for which she
won her third Emmy.In 1963 she quest starred in an episode on the
television series Bonanza.
Cassavetes films
Rowlands made her film debut in
The High Cost of Loving in
1958. She and Cassavetes made ten films together:
A Child is Waiting (1963),
Faces (1968),
Machine Gun McCain (1969),
Minnie and Moskowitz
(1971),
A Woman Under
the Influence (1974),
Two-Minute Warning (1976),
Opening Night (1977),
Gloria (1980; nomination for
Academy Award for Best
Actress),
Tempest
(1982), and
Love Streams
(1984).
According
to Boston
University
film scholar Ray Carney,
Rowlands sought to suppress an early version of Cassavetes' first
film, Shadows, that Carney
says he rediscovered after decades of searching.Rowlands
also became involved in the screenings of
Husbands and
Love Streams, according to Carney. The
UCLA Film and
Television Archive mounted a restoration of
Husbands,
as it was pruned down (without Cassavetes' consent, and in
violation of his contract) by
Columbia
Pictures several months after its release, in an attempt to
restore as much of the removed content as possible.
At Rowlands' request,
UCLA
created an alternative print with almost ten
minutes of content edited out, as Rowlands felt that these scenes
were in poor taste. The alternative print is the only one
that has been made available for rental.
Post-Cassavetes films
Rowlands was seen in
The
Notebook, which was directed by her son
Nick Cassavetes, opposite
James Garner. In 2004, she won her first
Daytime Emmy for her role as Mrs.
Evelyn Ritchie in
The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie. Rowlands
has been nominated for two
Academy
Awards, six
Emmy nominations, one Daytime
Emmy, eight
Golden Globes, three
Satellite Awards and one
SAG Award. Some of her
notable wins include a Silver Berlin Bear; three Emmy Awards and
one Daytime Emmy; two Golden Globes; two
National Board of
Review Award; two
Satellite
Awards; and one Prize San Sebastián. In 2005, she appeared
opposite
Kate Hudson,
Peter Sarsgaard, and
John Hurt in the
gothic thriller
The Skeleton Key.
In 2007, she played a supporting role opposite
Parker Posey and
Melvil Poupaud in
Broken English, an
independent American feature written and directed by her daughter
Zoe Cassavetes. In 2009 she appeared
on an episode of
Monk
("Mr. Monk and the Lady Next Door").
Personal life
Gena Rowlands was married to
John
Cassavetes from April 9, 1954 until his death on February 3,
1989. They had three children, all actor-directors:
Nick,
Alexandra and
Zoe.
Filmography
References
- Dane County Register of Deeds, Madison, Wisconsin.
- Assembly, 1927-1935; Senate, 1935-1939. Members of the
Wisconsin Legislature 1848 – 1999, Informational Bulletin
99-1, Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, 1999. He was a member
of Wisconsin's Progressive
Party.
- U.S. Census, April 1, 1930, state of Wisconsin, county of
Columbia, village of Cambria, enumeration district 3, page 4-B,
family 130.
- Gena Rowlands Biography (1930?-)
- "OPA Directed by Merwyn Rowlands," The Sheboygan
Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, April 2, 1942, p. 4.
- Registrar's Office, University of Wisconsin–Madison.
- "Six U.W. Co-eds 'Badger Beauties,'" The Sheboygan
Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, November 14, 1949, p. 2.
- “Who Owns an Improvised Work?”, The John
Cassavetes Pages; accessed December 17, 2006
- Carney, Ray “On Your Relationship with Criterion”, The
John Cassavetes Pages; accessed December 17, 2006
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