In addition to Nick, a director (Alpha Dog, My Sister’s Keeper) and actor, she and Cassavetes had two daughters, Alexandra and Zoe, who also pursued acting careers.
John Cassavetes died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1989, and Rowlands returned to acting to assuage her grief. Between assignments she sometimes attended film festivals and societies for Cassavetes screenings.
“I want everyone to see his films,” she said at the San Sebastian Festival in 1992. “John was one of a kind, the most totally fearless person I’ve ever known. He had a very specific view of life and the individuality of people.”
Virginia Cathryn Rowlands was born in 1930 (some sources give a later date) in Cambria, Wisconsin, where her Welsh ancestors had settled in the early 19th century. Her father was a banker and state senator. She was a withdrawn child who loved books and make-believe. Her mother encouraged the girl’s ambition to become an actress.
Rowlands quit the University of Wisconsin in her junior year to pursue an acting career in New York. Like other actors of her generation, she gained invaluable experience in the thriving field of television drama in the 1950s, appearing on all the major series.
After leaving her MGM contract, she was able to choose her film roles. When nothing attracted her, she appeared in TV series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bonanza, Dr Kildare and The Virginian. One of her career delights was co-starring with her icon Bette Davis on the TV movie Strangers in 1979.
Her other movies included Lonely Are The Brave with Kirk Douglas, The Spiral Road (Rock Hudson), A Child Is Waiting (with Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland, directed by Cassavetes), Two Minute Warning (Charlton Heston), Tempest (co-starring with Cassavetes and Molly Ringwald, in her screen debut) and the mother who wants to do right by her children in Paul Schrader’s 1987 study of a blue-collar family Light Of Day.
In middle age and beyond, Rowlands continued playing demanding roles. In Woody Allen’s austere drama, Another Woman, she was cast as a writer whose life has been shielded from emotion until dire incidents force her to deal with her feelings. In the groundbreaking TV movie An Early Frost, she appeared as a mother confronting her son’s AIDS.
Rowlands commented in 1992 that her roles remained in her memory.
“Sometimes, those white nights when I have no sleep and a lot of time to think about everything, I’ll examine different possibilities of different characters and what they might be doing now,” she said.
Source: CNA
