Gena Rowlands
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Gena Rowlands (born June 19, 1930) is an American actress.
She was born Virginia Cathryn Rowlands in Madison, Wisconsin,[1] and raised in Cambria, Wisconsin. Her father, Edwin Myrwyn Rowlands, was a state legislator[2] and her mother, Mary Allen Neal, was a housewife originally from Arkansas.[3] The family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1939 when Myrwyn was appointed to a position in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1942 when he was appointed as branch manager of the Office of Price Administration,[4] and later to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gena attended the University of Wisconsin from 1947 to 1950,[5] where she was a popular student already renowned for her beauty.[6] She left for New York City to study drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Rowlands went from understudy to lead role in the original Broadway production of The Seven Year Itch, and opened in Middle of the Night in 1956. She made her film debut in The High Cost of Loving in 1958. She guest starred in several anthology television series, including Robert Montgomery Presents, Kraft Television Theatre and Studio One, among many others. In 1961 she starred in the well-received television series 87th Precinct, and in 1964 in Peyton Place.
Teaming with her husband, writer and director John Cassavetes, whom she married in 1954, Rowlands starred in many productions, including Staccato, A Child Is Waiting, Faces, Gloria (nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress), Love Streams, Minnie and Moskowitz, She's So Lovely, and A Woman Under the Influence (Academy Award nomination). She starred in The Neon Bible. In 1985, Rowlands played the mother in the critically acclaimed made-for-TV movie An Early Frost. In recent years, she has appeared in Paulie and in Mira Nair's HBO movie, Hysterical Blindness for which she won her third Emmy.
She was recently seen in The Notebook, which was directed by her son, Nick Cassavetes, and co-starred James Garner, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. In 2004 she won her first Daytime Emmy for her role as Mrs. Evelyn Ritchie in The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie. To name a few, Ms. Rowlands has been nominated for: two Academy Awards; six Emmy nominations, and one Daytime Emmy; eight Golden Globes; three Satellite Awards; and one SAG Award. Some of her notable wins include: a Silver Berlin Bear; three Emmy Awards and one Daytime Emmy; two Golden Globes; two National Board of Review Awards; two Satellite Awards; and one Prize San Sebastián.
In 2005, she appeared opposite Kate Hudson, Peter Sarsgaard, and John Hurt in the gothic thriller The Skeleton Key.
[edit] Controversy
She has recently come under a considerable amount of controversy because of certain actions that she has made regarding John Cassavetes' films.
Perhaps the most notorious of these deals with the recently-discovered first version of Shadows, which was widely believed to no longer exist for years. After well over a decade of searching for the film, Ray Carney managed to find a print of the film. [1]
Upon hearing about this, Gena demanded that all copies of the film should be turned over to her, and that (in Carney's words) she would do anything necessary to keep the film from being seen, even destroying it.[2]
There are lesser-known incidents regarding screenings of the films Husbands and Love Streams. The UCLA Film and Television Archive mounted a restoration of Husbands, as it was pruned down (without Cassavetes' consent, and in violation of his contract) by Columbia Pictures several months after its release, in an attempt to restore as much of the removed content as possible. However, at Rowlands's request, UCLA created an alternate print with almost ten minutes of content edited out, as Gena felt that these scenes were in poor taste. The alternate print is the only one that has been available for rental.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Dane County Register of Deeds, Madison, Wisconsin.
- ^ Assembly, 1927-1935; Senate, 1935-1939. Members of the Wisconsin Legislature 1848 – 1999, Informational Bulletin 99-1, Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, 1999. He was a member of Wisconsin's Progressive Party.
- ^ U.S. Census, April 1, 1930, state of Wisconsin, county of Columbia, village of Cambria, enumeration district 3, page 4-B, family 130.
- ^ "OPA Directed by Merwyn Rowlands," The Sheboygan Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, April 2, 1942, p. 4.
- ^ Registrar's Office, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- ^ "Six U.W. Co-eds 'Badger Beauties,'" The Sheboygan Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, November 14, 1949, p. 2.
