, the wife and muse of John whose unvarnished abilities found in such films as , , and put her in the pantheon of acting legends, died Wednesday. She was 94. died surrounded by family members at her home in Indian Wells, California, according to .
A spokesperson for WME, where her son, writer-director Nick , has representation, confirmed her death. She had . received Oscar nominations for her performances in (1974), where she played an isolated, emotionally vulnerable housewife who lapses into madness, and (1980), where she sparkled as a pissed-off child protector who rails against the Mob.
She lost out to Ellen of and Sissy of in those Academy Award races. Her greatness wasn’t formally acknowledged by the Academy until she received an honorary Oscar at the 2015 Governors Awards. “You know what’s wonderful about being an actress?” said at the ceremony.
“You don’t just live one life — yours — you live many lives.” John directed his wife in and as well as in (1959), (1963), (1968), (1971), (1977) and (1984). He wrote all but one of those dramas as well, and together, the couple kick-started the independent film movement in America.
Her husband “loved actors, and he had a particular interest in women. Women in movies, I should say!” ‘s Scott Feinberg in 2015. “He was interested in women’s problems and where they are in society and what they have to overcome.
He offered me some really wonderful parts.” Rowlands starred for Nick as a lonely widow in (1996) and as an elderly woman with dementia in (2004). She also appeared for him in (1997), based on a script from John .
Her daughters, Zoe and are writer/directors as well. At her best when playing beleaguered heroines, often downplayed her corn-fed Midwestern beauty, subverting her good looks when the part called for it — as in , when she portrayed the aging and insecure stage actress Myrtle Gordon. Still, ‘ undeniable tour de force was starring as Mabel , whose construction worker husband (Peter Falk) sends her to an institution in .
In a 2015 interview with the , she didn’t receive any special treatment because she was married to the director — like when she asked John a question as they filmed the first scene in . “I usually don’t ask questions,” she said. “I said, ‘I am sort of stuck.
’ He said, ‘ , before you go any further, I wrote the picture with you in mind. You said you liked it.’ I said I loved it.
He said, ‘You said you wanted to do it.’ I said, ‘I do.’ And he said, ‘Then do it.
’ “ indicated that this unfiltered response “was the most freeing, wonderful piece of advice. You didn’t have to depend on anybody or anything anybody said. It was yours to do with as you saw.
It was like someone gave you a gift.” In , displayed startling resilience as Gloria Swenson, a former girlfriend of a mobster who goes on the run to protect the young boy (John ) who lives next door. It was an action-packed movie, but she considered it a “gangster comedy.
” In Ray Carney’s 2001 book , the writer-director says he agreed to do the film because wanted to play a role that captured the way she sometimes thought of herself — the “sexy but tough woman who doesn’t really need a man” type, like one of her idols, . “She sets the initial premise and follows the script very completely,” said. “Very rarely will she improvise, though she does in her head and in her personal thoughts.
Everybody else is going boom! boom! boom!, but is very dedicated and pure. “She doesn’t care if it’s cinematic, doesn’t care where the camera is, doesn’t care if she looks good — doesn’t care about anything except that you believe her. She caught the rhythm of that woman living a life she’d never seen.
When she’s ready to kill, I’m amazed at how coldly she does it.” In quite the testimonial, Tennessee Williams once compared to a work of art that “you place yourself in front of as if they were paintings in a museum, or sunsets, or mountains, or lovers walking slowly away from you.” Virginia was born on June 19, 1930, in Madison, consin.
Her father was a banker and state senator, and her mother had been invited to be a girl but pursued a career in art instead. attended the University of Wisconsin but left to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. It was there that she met , an alum a year ahead of her who spotted in a student production of .
Priestley’s . Four months after they met, she and were married in 1954 and were together until he died from cirrhosis in February 1989. He was 59.
‘ first professional stage appearance came in a Playhouse drama. She also did live TV and was cast by producer-director Joshua Logan in 1956 to play a young woman who falls in love with an older man (Edward G. Robinson) in Paddy .
After 18 months with the play, signed with MGM and made her feature debut as Jose confident wife in the drama (1958). She went on to perform in the Dalton Western (1962) with , in (1962) opposite and in (1967) with . On television in the , played the deaf-mute wife of a detective on the NBC series and the temptress Adrienne Van on ABC’s .
She and , however, made other people’s movies — like (1969), (1976) and (1982), when they acted together — to support their own. “We wanted a certain way of life. We wanted to get up and really do what we wanted to do that day,” she once said.
“We didn’t want to go do something that everyone said we should do. Believe me, everyone was saying we were doing the wrong thing, all of the time. But it was terribly satisfying.
“I think of the kids too. Every time they stepped out of their bedrooms, they were tripping over a cable or bumping into a camera. They were very easy with it.
It wasn’t some kind of exotic thing where your parents went to the studio; they didn’t feel shut out of it.” In , played a caring professional escort. And in , she was wonderful in a screwball comedy.
also won three Emmy Awards (from eight nominations), with one for playing the first lady in 1987’s and another for portraying a waitress in a diner who is romanced by another regular, Ben , in 2002’s . She starred opposite Bette Davis in the 1979 telefilm and with Jane Alexander (they played a lesbian couple raising three children) in a 1983 Hallmark production of . played and Joan Jett’s mother in (1987); appeared as a philosophy professor in ‘s (1988); and starred for in (1991) and (1995) and for her daughter Zoe in (2007).
Her more recent film appearances came in Jim (1991) — the first film she made after ‘ death — (1993), (1998), (1999), (2005) and (2014). Survivors also include her second husband, retired businessman Bob Forrest. Director Sidney once said of : “The highest compliment I can pay to her — to anyone — is that the talent frightens me, making me aware of the lack of it in so many and the power that accrues to those who have it and use it well.
And the talent educates and illuminates. She is admirable, which can be said of only a few of THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The Hollywood Reporter.
