Gena Rowlands, hailed as one of the greatest actors to ever practice the craft and a guiding light in independent cinema as a star in groundbreaking movies by her director husband, John Cassavetes, and later charmed audiences in her son’s tear-jerker , has died. She was 94. Rowlands’ death was confirmed Wednesday by representatives for her son, filmmaker Nick Cassavetes.
He revealed earlier this year that his mother had Alzheimer’s disease. TMZ reported that Rowlands died Wednesday at her home in Indian Wells, Calif. Operating outside the studio system, the husband-and-wife team of John Cassavetes and Rowlands created indelible portraits of working-class strivers and small-timers in such films as , and .
Rowlands made 10 films across four decades with Cassavetes, including in 1971, in 1977 and in 1984. She earned two Oscar nods for two of them: 1974’s , in which she played a wife and mother cracking under the burden of domestic harmony, and in 1980, about a woman who helps a young boy escape the mob. “He had a particular sympathetic interest in women and their problems in society, how they were treated and how they solved and overcame what they needed to, so all his movies have some interesting women, and you don’t need many,” she told the AP in 2015.
In addition to the Oscar nominations, Rowlands earned three Primetime Emmy Awards, one Daytime Emmy and two Golden Globes. She was awarded an honourary Academy Award in 2015 in recognition of her work and legacy in.