R.I.P. Gena Rowlands, star of A Woman Under The Influence

Frequently working with her husband John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands gave some of the most electric film performances of the 20th century.

By Laura Adamczyk | August 14, 2024 | 10:20pm

Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Film News Gena Rowlands

R.I.P. Gena Rowlands, star of A Woman Under The Influence

TMZ reports today that the award-winning actress Gena Rowlands has died. Best known for the films she made with her late husband, John Cassavetes, Rowlands was an immensely talented performer with incredible range who acted on the stage, in television, and in more than 40 films. No cause of death has been revealed. She was 94 years old.

Rowlands starred in 10 of Cassavetes’ films, including Faces (1968), Woman Under The Influence (1974), Opening Night (1977), and Gloria (1980). Vanguards of American independent film, Rowlands and Cassavetes worked outside of the studio system, embracing a scrappy DIY approach. They often shot their films in their own home and cast friends and family members, including their own mothers. The couple would put all their money into their productions, and when it ran out, acted in studio films to finance their next project. Cassavetes, an actor himself, cared deeply about performance, affording a great deal of artistic freedom to his casts, and created a rich platform for his wife’s tremendous talent. Rowlands was a magnetic performer who portrayed tough, witty, wounded, deeply complex women in emotional crisis or otherwise pushed to extremes. The actress could express desperate tumult, weary despair, and acidic humor, often with little air between them.

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The actress is best known for her lead role in 1974’s Woman Under The Influence, which Rowlands herself considered the most challenging and satisfying of her career. The film follows Mabel Longhetti, an usual, free-spirited, fiercely loving housewife and mother whose psyche begins to unravel under the pressures of marriage and domesticity. Rowlands’ portrayal is a tilt-a-whirl of contrasting emotions and intense physicality—full of jerking hand gestures and intricate expressions. It remains one of the most electric and masterful film performances of the 20th century, and is impossible to fully parse. The actress was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe for the role. In her lifetime, she would go on to win another Golden Globe, four Emmys, and, in 2015, an Honorary Academy Award. Deeply devoted to her craft, Rowlands would disappear in her room for months at a time while preparing for a role.

Rowlands was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and in her youth moved with her family throughout the Midwest and along the East Coast. She attended the University of Wisconsin, after which she went to New York City to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she met Cassavetes, who had also been a student there. She got her start acting in New York theater and later television, including appearing on the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and starring in the 1960s soap opera Peyton Place.

In addition to the films she made with her husband, Rowlands also worked with such directors as Paul Schrader, Jim Jarmusch, Woody Allen, and Mira Nair. Rowlands and Cassavetes had three children together, and Rowlands starred in their films as well, including her son Nick Cassavetes’ The Notebook and her daughter Zoe Cassavetes’ Broken English.