Gena Rowlands

Gena Rowlands
On the red carpet at the 1992 Emmy Awards
Born	Virginia Cathryn Rowlands June 19, 1930 (1930-06-19) (age 79) Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1955–present
Spouse(s)	John Cassavetes (1954-1989, his death)

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,^[1] Rowlands was raised in Cambria. Her father, Edwin Myrwyn Rowlands, was a banker and a state legislator,^[2] and her mother, Mary Allen (née Neal), was a painter and housewife originally from Arkansas.^[3][4] 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,^[5] and later to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gena attended the University of Wisconsin from 1947 to 1950,^[6] where she was a popular student already renowned for her beauty.^[7] 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.^[8] 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.^[9]

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 Awards; 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

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gena Rowlands

• Gena Rowlands at the Internet Broadway Database
• Gena Rowlands at the Internet Movie Database
• Gena Rowlands at the TCM Movie Database
• Gena Rowlands at Yahoo! Movies