Gena Rowlands Remembered

ABOUT THE SERIES:

It is with profound sadness that the American Cinematheque pays homage to the monumental lifework of actor Gena Rowlands. Our twelve film tribute will memorialize the fearless, raw performances of an artist who transcended all preconceived notions of the art form throughout her nearly seven-decade-long career. Five of the films are collaborations with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes, including the 1974 masterwork A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, an examination of a woman confined to and crushed by the rigid societal structures in place during the era. Rowlands’s sheer commitment to her craft manifested as deeply authentic portrayals of women at odds with the zeitgeist of mid-to-late 20th century America. Join us during the month of September as we traverse the oeuvre of one of the most electrifying screen presences in the history of motion pictures.

Gena Rowlands started her illustrious entertainment career in television and performed for repertory theatre companies with her Broadway debut being in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH. As a television star, she acted in the anthology mystery series ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS (later renamed THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR) and the detective show JOHNNY STACCATO alongside her husband of 35 years, John Cassavetes. Rowlands’s film debut was in 1958 for José Ferrer’s THE HIGH COST OF LOVING, a comedy about the trials and tribulations of marriage. She then appeared with Kirk Douglas in the western film adaptation of Edward Abbey’s novel THE BRAVE COWBOY, David Miller’s LONELY ARE THE BRAVE. In 1968, Rowlands starred in Cassavetes’s cinéma-vérité style film FACES as a lonely sex worker who gets caught up in the middle of a couple’s decaying marriage. In MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ, Rowlands plays a jaded and dejected museum curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Rowlands’s aptitude for emotional realism and naturalistic acting resulted in the actor’s behemoth of a performance opposite Peter Falk in A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, which garnered the performer an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She received the same nomination for the titular role in GLORIA, which won the Golden Lion at the 37th Venice International Film Festival. The last film that Rowlands and Cassavetes worked on together was LOVE STREAMS in 1984, which the BBC named as one of the greatest American films ever made.

Beyond her collaborations with her husband, Rowlands also starred in films directed by her children. Taking direction from her son Nick Cassavetes, Rowlands appeared in the 2004 film THE NOTEBOOK as the older version of Rachel McAdams’s Allie Calhoun. She then acted in one of her last roles in her daughter Zoe Cassavetes’s directorial debut BROKEN ENGLISH. Additionally, Rowlands worked with a vast array of distinguished directors, including William Friedkin in THE BRINK’S JOB, Paul Schrader in LIGHT OF DAY, Woody Allen in ANOTHER WOMAN, and Jim Jarmusch in NIGHT ON EARTH. Although her director husband painted her in an especially angelic air in each of their films together, the multitalented actor never failed to captivate the audience the moment she stepped into frame in every picture she worked on. Gena Rowlands’s dynamism and gravitas transformed acting as a form of art and made her the ultimate muse and silver screen star.