US actress Gena Rowlands, whose six-decade career garnered Oscar nominations and other acclaim, died Wednesday at age 94. No official cause of death was immediately given, but her son Nick Cassavetes said earlier this year she had been battling Alzheimer's disease for five years. The Oscar-nominated performer brought her deep range of emotion and expression to a number of original and moving films that are considered classics of US independent cinema, most shot by her late husband, John Cassavetes.
For three decades starting in the 1960s, the couple formed an enchanting and explosive on-screen partnership that explored themes of passion and self-destruction against a backdrop of alcohol and infidelity. In what many consider her finest role, Rowlands captured to devastating effect a descent into mental illness in 1974's "A Woman Under the Influence," bringing her the first of two Oscar nominations. "Incapable of an unreal moment," said Woody Allen of the actress, whom he cast in his 1988 film "Another Woman.
" "Whatever I say about Gena isn't enough because she's so incredible," said Winona Ryder, quoted in the LA Times in 1992 when the two co-starred in Jim Jarmusch's "Night on Earth." "There's a nobility, strength and class to her work that nobody else holds a candle to, and she's so beautiful -- you just kind of marvel at the way she moves." From her earliest work there were shades of Marilyn Monroe in Rowlands -- the blonde hair in a wavy bob, the arresting on-screen beauty.