Girl of a Senator of Wisconsin, Gena Rowlands, very early impassioned by the theatre, takes courses of comedy in American Academy of dramatic arts. Come to attend a representation, a former student notices the actress: it is John Cassavetes, then young actor him too. Gena Rowlands marries in 1954 that which will become one of the heads of file of the American independent cinema. Rowlands, which makes its beginnings in Broadway in Seven years of reflexion, triumphs in the part Middle of the night at the sides over Edward G Robinson, and takes part in several televised series, finds its first role with the cinema in the Love is expensive in 1958. It will be soon the partner of Kirk Douglas (in Seuls are the untamed ones into 62) and Sinatra (Tony Rome is dangerous), but, very quickly, they are its services in films of her husband which holds the attention. Appearing in Shadows, Gena Rowlands holds a more consequent role in the mélo a child waits, film of impersonal studio. Cassavetes will then offer to its egery beautiful characters of women shifted and generous, who allow the actress to develop a very physical play, with a consumed art of disproportion. Prostitute in Faces, t

en partner of Seymour Cassel beatnik in Ainsi goes the love, Gena Rowlands will incarnera Mabel, mother at the edge of the madness in a woman under influence (for which it receives the Golden delicious Earth of the Best actress, and a nomination with the Oscar), Myrtle, alcoholic actress in Opening Night (price of interpretation in Berlin), then Gloria, detective tenderized by a child, in a film of order which will be the largest success of the couple, and will be worth with the actress one second nomination with the Oscars. Cassavetes and Rowlands incarnent a brother and a sister with the passion reports/ratios in Torrents of love, gold Ours in Berlin and their last joint film. If Gena Rowlands turns almost exclusively in films of her husband, until the death of this one in 1989, one finds it since 1988 in Another woman, of Woody Allen, in which it is a professor of philosophy in full existential crisis. Momentary of the taxi driven by Winona Ryder in Night one Earth de Jarmusch, it is the exuberant aunt of the young hero of the Bible of neon of Terence Davies, in 1995. The following year, it turns Décroche the stars under the direction of her son Nick Cassavetes, to the sides of Gerard Depardieu, who, by distributing in France several films of John Cassavetes in 1992, contributed to the rediscovery of the scenario writer and his actress-fetish, become a model for the younger generation of actresses.

f Gerard Depardieu, who, by distributing in France several films of John Cassavetes in 1992, contributed to the rediscovery of the scenario writer and his actress-fetish, become a model for the younger generation of actresses.