Jenna LowlandsJohn’s wife and muse Cassavetes The actress, whose effortless acting chops earned her a place in the ranks of acting legends in films like “Faces,” “A Woman Under the Influence,” “Opening Night” and “Gloria,” died Wednesday at the age of 94.
Lowlands According to TMZ, she died surrounded by her family at her Indian Wells, Calif., home. A WME spokesperson said her son, writer-director Nick CassavetesA lawyer representing her confirmed her death. She had been battling Alzheimer’s disease since 2019.
Lowlands She received Academy Award nominations for her performances in A Woman Under the Influence (1974), in which she played an isolated, mentally fragile housewife who descends into madness, and Gloria (1980), in which she played an embittered child protection officer who rails against the Mafia.
She lost to Ellen Burstyn Alice doesn’t live here anymore, and Sissy Spacek She was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in Coal Miner’s Daughter, but her greatness wasn’t officially recognized by the Academy until she received an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in 2015.
“You know what’s great about being an actress?” Lowlands “You don’t just live one life, you live many lives,” he said at the ceremony.
John Cassavetes He directed his wife in Influence and Gloria, and also directed the films Shadow (1959), Children Are Expecting (1963), Faces (1968), Minnie and Moskowitz He also wrote the screenplays for such dramas as The Man Who Was There (1971), Opening Night (1977), and Love Streams (1984). He also wrote the screenplays for all but one of these dramas, and together the couple became pioneers of the independent film movement in America.
Her husband “loved actors and was especially interested in women. You could say he was interested in women in movies!” Lowlands said ThursdayShe signed on with Scott Feinberg for Star Wars: Episode I: A New Hope in 2015. “He was interested in women’s issues and where women are in society and what they have to overcome. He offered me some really great roles.”
Rowlands starred as Nick. Cassavetes She played a lonely widow in Unhook the Stars (1996), an elderly woman with dementia in The Notebook (2004), and also starred in She’s So Lovely (1997), based on a screenplay by John Lennon. Cassavetes.
Her daughter, Zoe Cassavetes and Zan Cassavetes, He also serves as screenwriter and director.
She is at her best when playing a heroine in a difficult situation. Lowlands She often underplayed her corn-fed Midwestern beauty and then ruined it when the role required it, as in her role as the aging, anxious stage actress Myrtle Gordon in Opening Night.
still, Lowlands‘ Her undoubted masterpiece was her role as Mabel. LonghettiIn the film Woman Under the Influence, her construction worker husband (Peter Falk) sends her to live in an institution.
In a 2015 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lowlands She said she didn’t receive any special treatment because she was married to the director, such as when she asked John a question while shooting the first scene of “Woman Under the Influence.”
“I don’t normally ask questions,” she said, “and I said, ‘I’m kind of stuck,’ and he said, ‘Hey, what are you talking about?Jenna“Before you go any further, I painted this picture with you in mind and you said you liked it.’ I said I loved it. He said, ‘You said you wanted to do it,’ and I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘Well, go ahead and do it.'”
Lowlands This honest response “was the most liberating and wonderful advice. I didn’t have to rely on anyone or what someone else told me. I could see for myself and decide for myself. It was like someone had given me a gift.”
In Gloria, Lowlands Gloria Swenson is the ex-girlfriend of a gangster and the boy (John AdamesMy next door neighbor, 32, deemed the film a “gangster comedy” – even though it was action-packed.
Ray Carney’s 2001 book Cassavetes On CassavetesThe writer and director explained that he agreed to do the film because Lowlands She wanted to play a role that captured the type of woman she sometimes thought of: sexy but tough, who doesn’t need a man much — a type like one of her idols, Marlene Dietrich.
“She sets up the initial premise and follows the script perfectly.” Cassavetes “She rarely improvises, but she does so in her own head, in her own private thoughts. While everyone else is yelling ‘boom! boom! boom!’ Jenna Very dedicated and pure.
“She doesn’t care if it’s cinematic, where the camera is, or if she looks good – she just cares that she’s believable. She has the rhythm of a woman living a life like no other you’ve ever seen. And when she’s ready to commit a murder, I’m astounded by how ruthless she is at doing it.”
Tennessee Williams once said, Lowlands A work of art that “stands before me like a painting in a museum, a sunset, a mountain, lovers slowly slipping away from me.”
Virginia Kathryn Lowlands Born June 19, 1930 in Madison. WhisHer father was a banker and state senator, and her mother Ziegfeld She spent her childhood in adolescence but instead pursued a career in art.
Lowlands She enrolled at the University of Wisconsin but dropped out to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Cassavetesa graduate who was one year older than her. Lowlands Student-created JBDangerous corner from Priestley.
Four months after we met, Cassavetes The two married in 1954 and remained together until his death from cirrhosis of the liver in February 1989. He was 59 years old.
LowlandsMy first professional stage appearance was Provincetown She also appeared in theatre dramas and on live television, and in 1956 she was cast by producer and director Joshua Logan to play a young woman who falls in love with an older man (Edward G. Robinson) in Paddy. Chayefsky’s midnight.
18 months after I started acting, Lowlands He signed with MGM and made his feature film debut as Jose. Ferrer’s She played a confident wife in the drama The Price of Love (1958) and continued acting at the Dalton Theatre. Trumbo His western appearances included “The Lonely Man” (1962) with Kirk Douglas, “Spiral Road” (1962) with Rock Hudson, and “Tony Roma’s” (1967) with Frank Sinatra.
On TV 1960s, Lowlands She played the wife of a deaf detective on the NBC drama series 87th The Province and the Seducer Adrian Van Leiden on ABC’s Peyton Place.
With her CassavetesHowever, Machine Gun McCain (1969), Two Minute Warning (1976), and Paul Motherskyof The two co-starred in the 1982 film The Tempest, where they were promoting their film together.
“We wanted to live a certain way. We wanted to get up and do what we really wanted to do that day,” she once said. “We didn’t want to do what everyone said we should do. Believe me, everyone was always telling us we were doing it wrong. But it was so satisfying.”
“I think about the kids too. Every time they came out of their bedrooms they would trip over cables or bump into cameras. But they did it so casually. It was not unusual for their parents to go to the studio, and they didn’t feel excluded.”
In the face, Lowlands She played a caring and professional escort and also gave a brilliant performance in the screwball comedy “Love Streams.”
Lowlands She also won three Emmy Awards (with eight nominations) for her role as a first lady in 1987’s The Betty Ford Story, and as a diner waitress who falls in love with another woman. Cassavetes Regular, Ben GazalaShe appeared in the 2002 film “Hysterical Blindness.”
She starred opposite Bette Davis in the 1979 TV movie Strangers, and co-starred with Jane Alexander in the 1983 Hallmark production Thursday’s Child (as a lesbian couple raising three children).
Lowlands She played Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett’s mother in Light of Day (1987) and a philosophy professor in Woody Allen’s Another Woman (1988). Lasse Hallstrom She appeared in Once Around (1991) and Something to Talk About (1995), as well as for her daughter Zoe in Broken English (2007).
Her latest film appearance is Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth (1991) — the first film she appeared in after Cassavetes‘ Death — Silent Cries (1993), Hope Floats (1998), The Weekend (1999), The Skeleton Key (2005), Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (2014).
Survivors include her second husband, Bob Forrest, a retired businessman.
Sydney Director Lumet Once said Lowlands:
“The highest compliment I can pay her, and I could pay anyone, is that her talent intimidates me and makes me realize the lack of talent in many people and the power that comes to those who have it and use it well. And talent educates and enlightens. She is someone to be celebrated. Us.”
Duane Barge contributed to this report.
