Virginia Cathryn "Gena" Rowlands (/ˈdʒɛnə/;[1] June 19, 1930 – August 14, 2024) was an American actress, whose career in film, stage, and television spanned nearly seven decades.

She rose to prominence for her collaborations with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, including A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980), both of which earned her Oscar nominations.

Her other notable roles included William Friedkin's The Brink's Job (1978), Woody Allen's Another Woman (1988), Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth (1991), Mira Nair's Hysterical Blindness (2002), her son Nick Cassavetes's The Notebook (2004).

In 2021, Richard Brody of The New Yorker said, "The most important and original movie actor of the past half century-plus is Gena Rowlands.

In 1961, she appeared in the adventure series The Islanders, set in the South Pacific, and in Target: The Corruptors!, starring Stephen McNally.

She guest-starred in The Lloyd Bridges Show, the detective series 77 Sunset Strip, Kraft Suspense Theatre, the Westerns Bonanza and The Virginian, and Breaking Point, all in 1963.

[citation needed] Rowlands and Cassavetes made ten films together: A Child Is Waiting (1963), Faces (1968), Machine Gun McCain (1969), Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), A Woman Under the Influence (1974; nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress), Two-Minute Warning (1976), Opening Night (1977), Gloria (1980; nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress), Tempest (1982), and Love Streams (1984).

She played Marion Post, a middle-aged professor who is prompted to a journey of self-discovery when she overhears the therapy sessions of another woman (Mia Farrow).

The review in Time Out described the character's trajectory: "Marion gets to thinking, and is appalled to realise that so many assumptions about her own life and marriage are largely unfounded: in her desire for a controlled existence, she has evaded the emotional truth about relationships with her best friend (Sandy Dennis), brother (Harris Yulin) and husband (Ian Holm)."

Time Out praised the "marvellous" performances in the film, adding, "Rowlands' perfectly pitched approach to a demanding role is particularly stunning.

"[23] Film4 called her performance "sublime",[24] while Roger Ebert noted that it marked a considerable change in tone from her work with Cassavetes, thus showing "how good an actress Rowlands has been all along.

In 2004, she starred as the older version of Rachel McAdams's character in the romantic drama film The Notebook alongside James Garner as her husband, which was directed by her son Nick Cassavetes.

[citation needed] In 2007, she played a supporting role opposite Parker Posey and Melvil Poupaud in Broken English, an independent American feature written and directed by her daughter Zoe Cassavetes.

On March 2, 2010, she appeared on an episode of NCIS as lead character Leroy Jethro Gibbs's former mother-in-law, who is embroiled in a murder investigation.