Gena Rowlands is DEAD TO ME

She seemed like the definition of a "Cool Broad"

But to be honest, I've never seen a movie of hers. What movie should I start with?

R1 Gloria

So young.

R1 Gloria, The Notebook, Skeleton Key.

Gloria

A Woman Under the Influence

She had a great C-ass-avetes but couldn’t live forever.

No!!!!

Sad to see TMZ basically calling her "the one in The Notebook." Like when Donald Sutherland died, I saw sites calling him "Hunger Games star."

Career details please....

I don't care what movies she was in. What hollyWOOD sizemeats has she taken?!?

I swear I remember a thread about her death a couple of months ago and thinking that I could have sworn she died years ago. So is she definitively dead now?

She was Oscar nominated for the Sharon Stone movie Gloria.

[QUOTE] Sad to see TMZ basically calling her "the one in The Notebook." Like when Donald Sutherland died, I saw sites calling him "Hunger Games star."

Yeah, if anything she’s known for The Skeleton Key.

R12 is Sharon Stone

RIP. Beautiful and talented. Gloria is the movie to start with. She had supporting roles in Once Around and Lonely Are the Brave, which are worth watching.

Wait! Did she play Alma in Brokeback Mountain?!? OMG

This is so sad! What a talent!

She was great in that episode of Columbo where she was wheelchair bound.

Eva Marie Saint? You in danger, girl.

"Opening Night" is fascinating.

Gena playing a famous actress who's a big drunk.....uhm.....

I was watching a later Judy Garland movie about retarded kids and there was a young blonde charismatic actress who looked familiar. Finally I realized it was her. Up until then the youngest I'd seen her was in A Woman Under the Influence.

Later I caught up on her earlier career, Cassavetes films, etc. I'll watch her in anything.

I liked Opening Night about an actress having a nervous breakdown. It feels like a fever dream. Almodovar’s All about my mother was inspired by this. I remember reading that Bette Davis was supposed to have played the Joan Blondell part.

"A Child is Waiting" (1963), r20

She was fabulous.

[quote] Garland movie about retarded kids

A Child Is Waiting

Her segment in Night on Earth where she plays a Hollywood agent who tries to convince her cab driver played by Winona Ryder to get in pictures.

A Retarded Child Is Waiting and Licking the Window

Thank you r22. I was posting and following a conversation here at home and was about to look it up...

Side note: Judy was stoned in that film.

RIP. She was a great heroine in Gloria.

[quote] I was watching a later Judy Garland movie about retarded kids

I work with retarded children...

Has she ever homewrecked? scandals? Anything remotely interesting?

Didnt let her speech impediment hold her back.

[quote] Didnt let her speech impediment hold her back.

An in-, in-, inspiration to a-, a-, all of us.

A friend worked on a film with her in the 90s and said she carried a big jug of cheap white wine in her bag all the time.

He said she was fantastic and professional.

She was fantastic in Hope Floats. Stunningly gorgeous when young. She had James Garner.

Very good in very good early TV AIDS themed movie, An Early Frost.

Great actress. RIP.

Gloria. It’s one of the greatest film performances ever. I’m serious.

r37 Sharon Stone is an underrated actress but I never thought she was that good in Gloria

Not to derail the thread but Hope Floats is a GREAT, underappreciated little movie. Much of the credit goes to Gina. She could flip from hysterical to heart breaking in under a second.

I loved her in “Tempest” and Woody Allen’s “Another Woman”.

Lookswise only, I've thought Ellen Barkin resembled her. And both were almost blonde versions of Romy Schneider. The eyes.

I think her greatest performance is in "Opening Night." Incredible performance in an incredible film.

I have never seen "Love Streams," her last film with Cassavetes, even though I bought a copy a few months ago (as it isn't available to stream anywhere). I think this weekend will be the one to watch it.

Beautiful performance as a gay mother trying to keep custody of her son in TV's A Question of Love.

That's a real punch in the gut.

I loved her voice in Skeleton Key talking about her husband's remedies. Here's the trailer, I couldn't find a Remedies clip

And yet Blake Lively still walks amongst us.

[quote]I work with retarded children...

My brother is...oh, never mind.

I like blue.

R38, shit up you ….Scandanavian nitwit!

Gena & Bette

I loved her. She reminded me of my Grandmother.

[quote]She had James Garner.

I never knew that. Lucky her!

Nick Cassavetes had said recently that his mother had dementia and was in memory care.

Adrienne Van Leyden from Peyton Place.

She was in some episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour when she was young. She did one with her husband, John Cassavetes

Gloria by far, her best performance, if not one of the best performances in any film.

RIP ma’am.

And Joanne Woodward, almost two decades into Alzheimer’s, continues to live.

Aw shit.... 😞

R.I.P.

R20 That movie you watched starring Garland was directed by John Cassavetes.

Gena Rowlands receives an Honorary Award at the 2015 Governors Awards

Another shocking young death!

[quote] memory care.

What is this precisely? If one has dementia are there any memories for which to care?

Flight 307

Love her. Have little patience for Cassavetes

RIP

She never lost her Wis-cahn-son accent.

*

Now I can ask, was it pronounced "Jenna Rou-lens" or "Gene-uh Role-lunds" or "Jenna Roe-lens" or "Gene-uh Rou-lunds" or some other combination?

I didn't want a poll, because I'm just needing the right answer.

I've got a speech to give real soon.

OMG I loved Gloria! "I am the man! I am the man!" Such a good movie. I wonder WEHT that little boy.

Gloria was written and directed by her husband John Cassavetes.

Another one to add to the list was one with Marissa Tomei as her d aughter, and I think Gerard Depardieu . I want to say, Unhook the Stars? Not sure. But it was a good movie.

[quote] Gloria was written and directed by her husband John Cassavetes.

Really? That's completely new to me.

So old.

Oh, no! Such an amazing actress

R40, she would have been so much better than Geraldine Page in Interiors.

Susan Dey will be issuing a statement soon. Stay tuned.

Awww.

RIP, Ma’am.

One of the greats. Loved her in 'Gloria.'

RIP

opening scene from Rowlands' film debut The High Cost of Living (1958) with Jose Ferrer.

Cassavetes was SO good looking/ hot in Rose Marie’s Baby ( 1968)

R.I.P Gena x

Rose Marie’s Baby, now that was a scary movie.

Tempest, 1982, with her husband and Raul Julia at his most adorable.

She did a tv movie called Strangers where she played Bette Davis's estranged daughter.

R84 She tells a funny story about Davis and the making of the film in the clip @R60 @2:00

r68 her name was pronounced "Jenna Row - lens."

R.I.P. Gena. I adored her work. She was an outstanding actress. I so enjoyed watching her talk about A Woman Under the Influence at MOMA in 2009. Link to a conversation between Peter Falk and Gena.

She was a beautiful woman and could have been a BIG STAR, but I think she preferred indies and wasn't interested in glamour.

10 Essential Gena Rowlands Performances

In a 1982 interview, Tennessee Williams said that we must bear witness, spread the word, and show respect to those who endow us with their souls. “I’ll give you a list,” he said of the rare few who had the courage to do such a thing, “and the first name is that of Gena Rowlands.”

Gena should have won an Oscar for A Woman Under The Influence. Ellen should have won the previous year for The Exorcist.

Ellen Burstyn, who had an upset Oscar win for “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More” that year, said of Gena Rowland’s performance in “A Woman Under the Influence” that it clearly deserved an Oscar, “not my Oscar, but an Oscar.”

R25 I loved her line in that scene: "I'm sorry if I sound calm. I promise you, I'm hysterical."

I never saw any of her movies until I saw 'Gloria' about fifteen years ago, flipping through channels and came across this on HBO when it was first starting - wow ! I was glued to the TV, it was such a good movie and she was such a great actress.

I'm hoping TCM dedicates an afternoon or night to some of her movies this coming weekend. Anyone know ?

R93 It's usually a week or two after a star passes that TCM dedicates a day to their movies. I'm sure they'll feature her soon.

R91 that is my new favorite quote, “you don’t deserve to win mine, but you should win something”

I’ll never understand for the life of me why Sharon Stone felt the need to remake GLORIA. For this she should have been waterboarded.

Gena was the OG Gloria. Great actress. Also great as the mom in LIGHT OF DAY.

Has anyone here seen "An Early Frost"? Probably the earliest high-profile depiction of AIDS. Gena played the mother of a dying young man. Bigots cut advertising as they didn't want to be associated with such a project.

R97 Yes. One of the first films to deal with the subject of AIDS and gay relationships. Very good, very sad. And as usual, she was brilliant in it.

R97, R35 did.

Sorry didn't see R35. I haven't seen it myself and wondered if it was any good

Playing By Heart is one of my favorite movies with Gena Rowlands. I love how all these seemingly disconnected plots come together at the end.

Check out 'The Skeleton Key' from 2005. Gena plays a spooky and mysterious New Orleans woman who puts the hoo doo on Kate Hudson. It's a good movie that ages well.

The Skeleton Key is a good creepy thriller. The ending is really fucked up.

[quote]! The Skeleton Key is a good creepy thriller. The ending is really fucked up.

[quote] Yeah, if anything she’s known for The Skeleton Key.

We're just listing her movies, not just the greatest hits r104

R79 The movie was called The High Cost of Loving.

R86 Why wouldn't the final D be pronounced?

She really was one of the most respected actresses of all time.

Some of the famous people who have posted memorials to Gena on their Instagram:

Viola Davis

Ariana Grande

Jamie Lee Curtis

Kirsten Dunst

Aubrey Plaza

Michael Imperioli

Rosie O'Donnell

Amy Sedaris

Katie Holmes

IIRC, When Gloria visit's the boss at the Dakota she ad-libs the line, " A million dollar apartment and it's got a slow elevator."

She also starred with Edward G. Robinson in Paddy Chayevsky's Middle Of The Night, on Broadway. This show (directed by Joshua Logan) ran almost 500 performances. I new she had been in it, but just looked it up on IBDB. (It also featured June Walker, Martin Balsam, Anne Jackson, Betty Walker, and Lee Phillips.) Looks like it was her only Broadway play. The TV version had starred Eva Marie Saint and E. G. Marshall, the movie version starred Kim Novak and Fredric March.

Interesting article from the LA Times. I never realized she took a second husband.

Besides her son, Rowlands is survived by second husband Robert Forrest, daughters Alexandra and Zoe and several grandchildren. Her brother, David Rowlands, died in 2000.

R111 She "took a second husband?"

How long did she court him? Did her family offer a dowery?

The farmer takes a wife, the farmer takes a wife, hi-ho the derry-o the farmer takes a wife.

R69. "I wonder WEHT that little boy."

I was that little boy.

R104 Gena was an actress who was capable of elevating even the most basic of material. And do try to use the quote function properly next time.

[quote] "I wonder WEHT that little boy."

He showed up to surprise her at a screening of Gloria in NYC in 2016.

I loved her, specially in Gloria and Another Woman. Though she is great in them, i find the Cassevette movies a little self-indulgent.

It is a pity she didn’t work more in later years. Hollywood really doesn’t know what to do about older women, specially at that stage when she was 50 to 80.

[quote] It is a pity she didn’t work more in later years.

What are you talking about? She had 34 roles in the last 20 years of her career, most of them in films or tv movies.

She would have been a brilliant alternate choice for Burstyn's role in Requiem For A Dream

Predictions for the next two celebrity deaths-Peter Coyote and David Strathairn

[quote] Has anyone here seen "An Early Frost"? Probably the earliest high-profile depiction of AIDS. Gena played the mother of a dying young man. Bigots cut advertising as they didn't want to be associated with such a project.

I cried the first time I watched it.

R121 I am avoiding watching it as I imagine it is painfully sad

[quote] She would have been a brilliant alternate choice for Burstyn's role in Requiem For A Dream

And she wouldn't have chewed the scenery as shamelessly as Burstyn did. Truly one of the most overrated performances I've ever laid eyes on. Burstyn has given many a good performance. This was not one of them.

R115 I'm sure GENA knew how to use a quote function properly! People of QUALITY know how to post on a gay gossip forum with antiquated formatting!

An Early Frost was the template for many films about AIDS, and its far better than the overrated Philadelphia.

Gena overcame a disfiguring coiffure by Woody Allen in Another Woman. Woody had a thing about women whose hair was worn in braids. See Judy Davis in Husbands and Wives. Jane Fonda reportedly turned down that film because she refused to wear her hair in that style.

R126, that’s the plot of a bad netflix movie - writer/director/hair weavers torturing starlettes’ hair. Can they escape? Do full-sized white women work with boxed braids? Should they?

10 Terrific Gena Rowlands Performances to Stream

NYTimes obit

Has Sandra Bullock commented yet?

I always confused these 3: Ellen Burstyn, Louise Fletcher, and Gena.

RIP.

I have an actor friend who was an extra in Once Around that starred Holly Hunter, Richard Dreyfuss, and Gena. Gena's big scene was stopping Richard from making a speech at a memorial service and Richard was giving Gena a hard time when they were trying to get it. My friend observed that Gena never lost her cool. She just told Richard, Let's get this done in the next take. And they did.

Thank you r117 - I also find Cassavetes films self-indulgent - Gloria is the only one I've enjoyed to date because it really has a proper plot and is not just 'here watch my wife fall apart for two hours." That said I haven't seen Opening Night and I want to give it a try, even though I know it's exactly that. Every ten years or so I decide it's time to try and watch another one, and find myself disappointed and disconnected from them, rinse and repeat.

Has surviving Golden Age of Hollywood-adjacent star Mamie Van Doren released a statement on Twitter yet?

Would love to hear her gutsy outspoken no holds barred memories of Gena. Even if it was just a brief meeting at a party 100 years ago and Gena was either rude to her or tried to make a pass at whoever Mamie was dating/married to at the time.

Last night I re-watched Another Woman, which I've seen a couple times before, and generally regard as Woody Allen's worst film during his genius period (aka 1977-1994) except for Shadows and Fog, which is so bad, he should have waited a decade to make it so it would have fit in with the rest of his output from then.

I still think it's a terrible movie, poorly constructed, ridiculously plotted, but was hoping I had overlooked this amazing performance from Rowlands (who I consider to be the best actress in my lifetime). I was still unimpressed. Not that she didn't do her best, but first and foremost, I found her miscast. Though she has icy blonde looks, she is far from a cold actress. She exudes warmth and a genuine lifeforce. And that is NOT the character of Marian. Marian is a cold, judgmental fish. Not to say that Rowlands couldn't do it, but she needed a better director, not someone like Allen, who has no idea how to talk to actors and pretty much just leaves them to their own devices. Her voiceover also really detracted from the performance (though it made sense, seeing that the character felt more like an observer in her own life, at least personally, if not professionally).

Rowlands could pretty much do anything. If you doubt this, then I challenge you to go find a horrendous film from the 1980s called Light of Day and watch her performance as the estranged mother of Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett. Yes, even in that howler, she managed to make something of her character.

I just wish I liked Another Woman better. Or at all.

Gena talks about working with Bette Davis @ 2:00.

You don't say, R136.

Will Celia Weston get Gena's roles from now on?

You only cast Celia Weston if the character you've written constantly gets lipstick on her teeth.

R138 You're thinking of Diane Ladd.

Such an amazing actress. Hard to believe she outlived John by 35 years. They were pioneers in indie cinema, and while some of their films are difficult to get through, you can never fault Gena. She brought this lived in, familiar and relatable quality to every character she played. She really had an incredible career, and worked non stop close to sixty years.

[quote]'here watch my wife fall apart for two hours."

Love this so much.

I think Gena is remarkable and perfectly cast in “Another Woman”.

She is intellectually gliding through the minefield that is her life until awakened by Mia Farrow's character. I find her Marion especially effective because she isn't playing at being "cold", or "intellectual", she just is, and the tragedy is that she has fooled herself too. I can watch it over and over and find new moments

R143- Agree-- Its a film I find oddly comforting. It was a character that she had never even come close to doing before, either- She was excellent-

Another rare one, is Unhook The Stars-

NY Times tribute

Another Woman is wonderful. I would’ve loved to have seen Gena get a third nomination for this, instead of one of Meryl’s superfluous nominations, this time for Ironweed.

Streep was nominated for "A Cry in the Dark" that year.

My bad. I was thinking AW came out in 1987. I stand corrected. I wouldn’t take Meryl’s nomination back for ACITD.

Maybe Melanie Griffiths I would.

GMA celebrates Rowlands

Of course that fucking cunt Jamie Lee Curtis has to insinuate herself into it. Could she maybe refrain from being part of one thing?

R136 Funny Bette Davis story!

I wish they would give special Oscars at the ceremony instead of shunting them aside to the Governor's banquet.

(Like they used to.)

She was married to Guy Woodhouse.

Gena is in a camp episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour called The Lonely Hours that has Nancy Kelly renting a room in her house. Nancy gets too attached to Gena's baby son.

[quote]Nancy gets too attached to Gena's baby son.

Aww, she misses Rhoda.

I just watched Gloria on Tubi. I’d never seen it. Gena was fantastic, and I’m glad she got an Oscar nomination, but that was a REALLY heavy category that year. I loved all these performances: Ellen Burstyn (Resurrection), Goldie Hawn (Private Benjamin), MTM (Ordinary People), and the winner, Sissy Spacek for Coal Miner’s Daughter. I do think Sissy totally deserved it, but there is case to be made for all the others—especially MTM.

A 1985 interview with Gene. She was 65 but looks like a modern 85.

R159- This about GENA, not Gene! Asshole.

Pointless interview with Gena. Joan refers to her as Gina!

in Searching for Debra Winger Teri Garr does an impersonation of Gena whom she met at an industry event. Teri makes Gena sound grander than her voice actually was but says Gena commented on how aging women in Hollywood are treated.

"Wait till they tell you that your face has been ravaged by time."

R161 is like The King of Comedy with Joan in her basement.

R158- Of course- Ordinary People is a Datalounge

MEGA favorite 😻.

Ordinary People is a favorite because our eldergays wish they grew up in an upper class old fashioned WASP family instead of their blue collar reality.

It’s why we trend towards “Risky Business” decor if left unsupervised, R165.

There was a great thread about “Gloria” that featured her clothing. The character would have access to great designers and tailors and they made sure her clothing reflected it.

One word, r166...Ungaro

An early appearance of hers on Kraft Suspense Theater, co-starring a hunky young Leslie Nielsen. Filmed at the Bates Motel and the Leave it to Beaver house.

^ I like that episode, she was very good in it

R168 she was a real beauty too.

I've never seen a motel room with a One Step Down sign before. Was this a thing in the 1960s?

She does bad telephone acting - not giving the person on the other end time to say the line she repeats.

Gena is really no match for the powerhouse Ida Lupino.

R173, there’s a thread for fat whores on that list over there ======>

You should join it.

Oof, trying to get through A Woman Under the Influence. I’ve never seen it before. Gena is almost too…real? It’s making me nervous and uncomfortable, haha…which I guess is the point. She’s so beautiful and fucked up in this…

r175- You have to see Love Streams (and Gloria) if you have not.

I actually rented Unhook the Stars last night. Loved it. I'd never seen that one before.

R177- I prefer to remember Gena like the end of that film-

"I am just so excited!"

The next chapter. I hope that she is excited for the new adventures that await-

Hell, If I even watch Hope Floats I am going to start crying. I LOVED her in that one too.

Just a great lady.

[quote] Oof, trying to get through A Woman Under the Influence. I’ve never seen it before. Gena is almost too…real? It’s making me nervous and uncomfortable, haha…which I guess is the point. She’s so beautiful and fucked up in this…

Yeah, it's a really tough watch. Other than Gloria, I had never seen a Cassavetes film before 1991, when there was a wonderful series of his movies that were being released around the country in theaters. It was actually the first time Opening Night had ever played in NYC. They were showing them at the Village East 6. I went to Woman/Influence one afternoon and I was cringing in my seat at how awkward and real it was. And I was so glad I was in a movie theater watching it so I didn't have the option of pausing.

I think I only saw that and Opening Night. They didn't play the movies too long, maybe only a week each? And it was a shitty movie theater unless the film you were seeing was on their one big screen.

Ugly old bitch

R180 is one ugly and rancid cunt. Eat shit, fuckhead.

Lmao

R181 calm your tits

r183, you're the reason the word puerile was invented.

Stand down queenie

Are you really *this* desperate for attention, r185?

R175 here. Just finished AWUTI. I need a drink! Mable really had some mental issues, but shit, so did her husband! GREAT movie though.

I consider myself pretty well-versed in film, but I’ve not seen any Cassavetes films—seems crazy to me, but true. I watched Gloria yesterday and later tonight I’m going to watch Faces. Maybe I’ll watch Opening Night tomorrow—I think it is pretty intense, and I need a break after already watching Gena unravel for two hours!

Mabel, not Mable, of course.

Ugly old twat

R57- Yes Joanne Woodward at deaths door for decades. ‘’ Joanne Woodward near death’’ every few months-shit or get off the pot!

R187, just understand that Cassavetes' films wildly vary in quality of writing and directing. The acting is almost always exemplary, but sometimes Cassavetes is incredibly self-indulgent and sometimes he simply has nothing to say. And I am a huge fan. I just don't want you going in to some of those titles thinking you're going to see the equivalent of A Woman Under the Influence every time. Best to go in thinking- I have no expectations. I have no idea what I'm about to see.

Enjoy!

Squarest jaw of any female movie star.

R187 here again. Watched Faces earlier tonight. It was..interesting? Gena was superb and SO beautiful. It was wild seeing Seymour Cassell in this. I’d only known him as “that old guy” in movies, but in this he was so young and cute! Wild that he and Lynn Carlin (who??) were Oscar nominated for this offbeat little movie. And fucking SALLY SPECTRA was in it!

Going to watch Opening Night tomorrow. Love Streams doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere. Maybe TCM will show it soon. Surely they are planning a Gena retrospective.

Posting this since I couldn’t get to sleep…still thinking about Gena as Mabel. :-(

TCM remembers.

Love Streams for you, R194.

Thanks r196! I’m about to watch Opening Night, so this will be next.

[quote]R194 Watched Faces earlier tonight. It was..interesting?

Christina Crawford appears as Woman Scattering Coins on Bar.

Gena never stooped to getting bangs.

She never did, r199.

What were your thoughts on "Opening Night," R197?

Her son Nick paid tribute to Robert Forrest (Gena’s second husband): he passed away just two weeks after Gena!

Years ago, we visited Westwood Memorial Park, where Cassavetes is buried (alongside his mother-in-law Lady Rowlands). It’s a beautiful, quiet place and so many artistic collaborators are there close to one another (e.g. Jack Lemon, Billy Wilder and Marilyn Monroe). Peter Falk, who was also brilliant in A Woman Under the Influence, is also buried there.

Natalie Wood, Farrah Fawcett, Truman Capote and Hugh Hefner are also at Westwood.

I misspelled Lemmon.

There haven’t been any announcements about Gena’s funeral so far.

R201 It was fascinating, but I was pretty worn out by the end. It was interesting watching old Hollywood Joan Blondell fitting into a Cassavetes film. Gena was, of course, fabulous. Thought of DL when I realized the crazy young fan girl was Laura Johnson, who went on to be Terry on Falcon Crest..and Mrs. Harry Hamlin, briefly.

The play within the movie looked terrible!