As a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and a beautiful blonde coming up during the heyday of 1950s Hollywood, GENA ROWLANDS, perhaps unsurprisingly, saw early success in studio movies, network television, and Broadway theatre. But the actress — who died yesterday at the age of 94 — veered from the expected Hollywood path of a ’50s starlet and found her career really flourish in independent cinema.
Working with her husband, actor/filmmaker John Cassavetes, Rowlands took the lead in a number of out-of-the-box showcases made without studio support that helped bring “independent film” into the mainstream. She also found juicy roles (both lead and supporting) with such notable filmmakers as Paul Mazursky, Paul Schrader, Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch, Terence Davies, and Mira Nair. While later known for supporting roles in hit studio romances such as Something to Talk About, Hope Floats, and The Notebook, we wanted to honor Gena Rowlands by highlighting a few of the must-see indies that she headlined throughout her impressive and influential career.
Faces (1968)
Following an uncredited cameo in her husband’s breakthrough indie Shadows in 1958, Rowlands landed a much larger role as sex worker-turned-mistress Jeannie in Faces, which tells the tale of middle-aged martial angst and infidelity. Self-financed by Cassavetes and Rowlands, and shot on black-and-white 16mm film largely inside the couple’s home, Faces was in production for six months in 1965 before being edited over the course of three years. It went on to win two awards at the Venice International Film Festival, landed three Oscar nominations, and received early raves from young film critic Roger Ebert. (It and also employed an up-and-coming production assistant by the name of Steven Spielberg.)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
A film performance that might just be the epitome of the phrase tour de force, Gena Rowlands plays mentally ill suburban housewife Mabel in A Woman Under the Influence. One of Cassavetes’s landmark films, anchored by Rowlands’s brave and uncompromising acting, the role landed her her first Academy Award nomination (her second came for 1980’s Columbia Pictures crime drama Gloria; and she won an Honorary Oscar in 2015). Lauded as one of the great performances of rule-breaking 1970s cinema, Rowlands won Best Actress prizes at the Golden Globes, National Board of Review, and San Sebastián International Film Festival.
Opening Night (1977)
Acclaimed actress Gena Rowlands plays acclaimed actress Myrtle Gordon in Opening Night. Focusing on the mental anguish of the acting process, industry sexism and ageism, and the toll of a creative life, the film was one of Cassavetes’s personal favorites of his own directorial efforts, and Rowlands won the Silver Bear Best Actress prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Love Streams (1984)
The final film collaboration between Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes (and Cassavetes’s last independent film as director before his 1989 death), Love Streams features the married couple as brother and sister in an intimate portrayal of family bonds and painful reunions. Filmed again in the couple’s home from Faces, Love Streams could be viewed as a fitting culmination of the themes and character types that Cassavetes and Rowlands had studied and portrayed for their entire creative (and romantic) partnership.
Night on Earth (1991)
Jim Jarmusch’s episodic one-night-in-a-cab dramedy finds various cabbies and customers in various cities. But standing out in the anthology crowd is Gena Rowlands’s Los Angeles ride with Winona Ryder. Rowlands plays a Hollywood casting agent en route from LAX who sparks an unlikely connection with her blue-collar, tomboy driver. Working with Jarmusch brought Rowlands into the realm of a new generation of indie filmmakers — those who were largely inspired by the earlier works of herself and Cassavetes.
Unhook the Stars (1996)
Nick Cassavetes (son of Gena and John) took on the family business with his directorial debut, Unhook the Stars. His mother stars in the film opposite Marisa Tomei, as two neighbors from different generations who form an unexpected friendship. Rowlands received a SAG Award Best Actress nomination for this Miramax indie, though it wouldn’t be the last time she acted in one of her children’s films; Nick also directed Gena in She’s So Lovely (written by John), and The Notebook; and her daughter Zoe directed her in the 2007 Sundance feature Broken English.
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As she stated in her acceptance speech at the 2015 Academy Governors Ball: “The wonderful thing about being an actress is you don’t just live one life, you live many lives.”
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