Virginia Cathryn “Gena” Rowlands (June 19, 1930 – August 14, 2024) was an American actress, whose career in film, stage, and television has spanned over six decades. She’s won various accolades, including 4 Emmy and Golden Globes. In November 2015, she received an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of her unique screen performances. She made her film debut in The High Cost of Living (1958), with José Ferrer (who also directed) and Jim Backus).
She was known for her collaborations with her late actor-director husband John Cassavetes in 10 films, including A Woman Under the Influence (1974), with Peter Falk; and Gloria (1980), with Julie Carmen, Buck Henry, and Julie Carmen; both which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Other films she appeared in directed by her husband include A Child Is Waiting (1963), with Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, Steven Hill, and Lawrence Tierney; Faces (1968), with John Marley, Lynn Carlin, Seymour Cassel, Fred Draper, and Val Avery; Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), with Cassel, Avery, and Timothy Carey; and Opening Night (1977), with Ben Gazzara, Joan Blondell, Paul Stewart, and Zohra Lampert.
She also appeared in films directed by her son, Nick Cassavetes, including Unhook the Stars (1996), with Marisa Tomei, Gérard Depardieu, Jake Lloyd, David Sherrill, David Thornton, Bridgette Wilson, and Moira Kelly; She’s So Lovely (1997), with Sean Penn, Robin Wright, John Travolta, Harry Dean Stanton, James Gandolfini, and Debi Mazar; The Notebook (2004), with Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner, James Marsden, Kevin Connolly, Sam Shepard, and Joan Allen; Yellow (2012), with Heather Wahlquist, Riley Keough, Sienna Miller, David Morse, Ray Liotta, Melanie Griffith, and Lucy Punch; and her daughter Zoe Cassavetes’s Broken English (2007), with Parker Posey, Melvil Poupaud, Drea de Matteo, Justin Theroux, and Peter Bogdanovich.
Other films in the 1960s and 1970s include David Miller’s Lonely Are the Brave (1962), with Kirk Douglas, Walter Matthau, Michael Kane, Carroll O’Connor, and William Schallert; Robert Mulligan’s The Spiral Road (1962), with Rock Hudson, Burl Ives, and Geoffrey Keen; Gordon Douglas’s Tony Rome (1967), with Frank Sinatra, Jill St. John, and Sue Lyon; Giuliano Montaldo’s Machine Gun McCain (1969), with Cassavetes, Britt Ekland, Falk; Gabriele Ferzetti, Florinda Bolkan, and Salvo Randone; Larry Peerce’s Two-Minute Warning (1976), with Charlton Heston, Cassavetes, Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges, Jack Kaufman, and David Janssen; and William Friedkin’s The Brink’s Job (1978), with Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands, and Paul Sorvino.
Films in the 1980s include Paul Mazursky’s Tempest (1982), with Cassavetes, Raul Julia, Susan Sarandon, Vittorio Gassman, and Molly Ringwald; Paul Schrader’s Light of Day (1987), with Michael J. Fox, Joan Jett, Michael McKean, and Jason Miller; and Woody Allen‘s Another Woman (1988), with Mia Farrow, Ian Holm, Blythe Danner, Philip Bosco, Betty Buckley, Sandy Dennis, Gene Hackman, John Houseman, Martha Plimpton, David Ogden Stiers, and Harris Yulin.
Films in the 1990s include Lasse Hallström’s Once Around (1991), with Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, Danny Aiello, and Laura San Giacomo; Jim Jarmusch‘s anthology film Night on Earth (1991), with Winona Ryder; Ted & Venus (1991), with Bud Cort (who also directed), James Brolin, Carol Kane, Martin Mull, Rhea Perlman, and Woody Harrelson; Something to Talk About (1995), with Julia Roberts, Robert Duvall, Kyra Sedgwick, and Dennis Quaid; Terence Davies’s The Neon Bible (1995), with Denis Leary and Diana Scarwid; Paulie (1997), with Jay Mohr, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, and Bruce Davison; Forest Whitaker’s Hope Floats (1998), with Sandra Bullock, Harry Connick Jr., and Mae Whitman; The Mighty (1998), with Gillian Anderson, Stanton, Kieran Culkin, Gandolfini, and Elden Henson; Playing by Heart (1998) with Anderson, Ellen Burstyn, Sean Connery, Anthony Edwards, Angelina Jolie, Mohr, Ryan Phillippe, Quaid, Jon Stewart, and Madeleine Stowe; and The Weekend (1999), with Deborah Kara Unger, Brooke Shields, David Conrad, James Duvall, Gary Dourdan, D.B. Sweeney, and Jared Harris.
Films in the 2000s include Taking Lives, with Jolie, Ethan Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland, Olivier Martinez, Tchéky Karyo, and Jean-Hugues Anglade; The Skeleton Key (2005), with Kate Hudson, Peter Sarsgaard, and John Hurt; Parts Per Billion (2013), with Frank Langella, Rosario Dawson, Penn Badgley, Teresa Palmer, and Josh Hartnett; and Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (2014), with Cheyenne Jackson, Rita Moreno, Julian Sands, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Anthony Zerbe, Simon Miller, and Jacki Weaver.
Each review will be linked to to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters) Film
- The High Cost of Loving (1958) – directed by Jose Ferrer
- Shadows (1959) – directed by John Cassavetes – uncredited
- Lonely Are the Brave (1962) – directed by David Miller
- The Spiral Road (1962) – directed by Robert Mulligan
- A Child Is Waiting (1963) – directed by John Cassavetes
- Tony Rome (1967) – directed by Gordon Douglas
- Faces (1968) – directed by John Cassavetes
- Machine Gun McCain (1969) – directed by Giuliano Montaldo
- Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) – directed by John Cassavetes
- A Woman Under the Influence (1974) – directed by John Cassavetes
- Two-Minute Warning (1976) – directed by Larry Peerce
- Opening Night (1977) – directed by John Cassavetes
- The Brink’s Job (1978) – directed by William Friedkin
- Gloria (1980) – directed by John Cassavetes
- Tempest (1982) – directed by Paul Mazursky
- Love Streams (1984) – directed by John Cassavetes
- I’m Almost Not Crazy: John Cassavetes, the Man & His Work (1984) – documentary short
- Light of Day (1987) – directed by Paul Schrader
- Another Woman (1988) – directed by Woody Allen
- Hollywood Mavericks (1990) – directed by Florence Dauman & Dale Ann Stieber – documentary
- Once Around (1991) – directed by Lasse Hallström
- Night on Earth (1991) – directed by Jim Jarmusch
- Ted & Venus (1991) – directed by Bud Cort
- Something to Talk About (1995) – directed by Lasse Hallström
- The Neon Bible (1995) – directed by Terence Davies
- Unhook the Stars (1996) – directed by Nick Cassavetes
- She’s So Lovely (1997) – directed by Nick Cassavetes
- Paulie (1998) – directed by John Roberts
- Hope Floats (1998) – directed by Forest Whitaker
- The Mighty (1998) – directed by Peter Chelsom
- Playing by Heart (1998) – directed by Willard Carroll
- The Weekend (1999) – directed by Brian Skeet
- Light Keeps Me Company Herself (2000) – directed by Carl-Gustav Nykvist documentary
- Taking Lives (2004) – directed by D.J. Caruso
- The Notebook (2004)* – directed by Nick Cassavetes
- The Skeleton Key (2005) – directed by Iain Softley
- Paris, je t’aime (2006) – directed by Emmanuel Benbihy, Joel & Ethan Coen, Nobuhiro Suwa, Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Gurinder Chadha, Frédéric Auburtin & Gérard Depardie, Sylvain Chomet, Vincenzo Natali, Richard LaGravenese, Tom Tykwer, Isabel Coixet Castillo, Christopher Doyle, Alexander Payne, Walter Salles & Daniela Thomas, Alfonso Cuarón, Bruno Podalydès, Oliver Schmitz, & Wes Craven – anthology
- Broken English (2006) – directed by Zoe Cassavetes
- Persepolis (2006) – directed by Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud – English dub
- Olive (2011) – directed by Tess M. Powell
- Yellow Mimi (2012) – directed by Nick Cassavetes
- Parts Per Billion (2012) – directed by Brian Horiuchi
- Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (2014) – directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman
- Unfortunate Circumstances (2017) – directed by Troy Price – short
TV
- A Question of Love (1978) – TV movie
- Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter (1979) – directed by Milton Katselas – TV movie
- Thursday’s Child (1983) – directed by David Lowell Rich – TV movie
- An Early Frost (1985) – directed by John Erman – TV movie
- The Betty Ford Story (1987) – directed by David Greene – TV movie
- Montana (1990) – directed by William Graham – TV movie
- Face of a Stranger (1991) – TV movie
- Crazy in Love (1992) – directed by Martha Coolidge – TV movie
- Anything for John (1993) – documentary
- Parallel Lives (1994) – directed by Linda Yellen – TV movie
- Best Friends for Life (1998) – TV movie
- Grace & Glorie (1998) – TV movie
- The Color of Love: Jacey’s Story (2000) – TV movie
- Wild Iris (2001) – directed by Daniel Petrie – TV movie
- Hysterical Blindness (2002) – directed by Mira Nair – TV movie
- Charms for the Easy Life (2002) – TV movie
- The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie (2004) – TV movie
- Numb3rs (2005-2010) – 1 episode (2006)
- What If God Were the Sun? (2007) – directed by Stephen Tolkin – TV movie
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