Gena Rowlands Had Her Own ‘Notebook’ Love Story With Filmmaker John Cassavetes
Gena Rowlands recently passed away at the age of 94 and left behind quite a beautiful legacy. Not only was she a celebrated actress, best known for films such as Hope Floats, The Skeleton Key, Gloria, The Notebook and many more, but she was also known for her longtime marriage to filmmaker John Cassavetes. She collaborated with him on 10 films, plus welcomed three children together.
The pair first met when they were students at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts and felt that it was love at first sight. They wed just a few months after meeting backstage at a performance and were together until Cassavetes’ death in 1989. Unfortunately, he struggled with alcoholism, which led to cirrhosis and his death at age 59.
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Although they were in love for decades and worked together well, it didn’t mean they always agreed on everything. Just a few years before his death, Cassavetes said, “Gena’s point of view is totally different from mine. But I think that’s great. God, if we agreed on everything — can you imagine? Just see us, walking through life, and we’re getting a little older, and people say, ‘Oh, they’re just alike! They agree on everything! If she says ‘blue,’ he says ‘blue.’ They really are together!’”
Remind He added, “I admire the hell out of her, because this has led me into at least an understanding of the way a person with a totally different background, a totally different cultural understanding of life, feels and thinks. The beauty of working with her is that I think she’s a great actress. I think anybody working with her would know it.”
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Rowlands remarried in 2012 to retired businessman Robert Forrest. A few years later in 2015, she announced her retirement from acting and her final movie role was in Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks. After the news broke of her death, her son Nick Cassavetes (who directed her in The Notebook) shared a fan tribute that read, “Another great team reunited! RIP Gena Rowlands,” referring to the hope that his parents are now together once again.
Hollywoods Golden Couples
February 2022
Gaze back at the classic romances of old Hollywood, both onscreen and off.
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