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Gena Rowlands, acting legend and star of “The Notebook,” dies at 94
Gena Rowlands, hailed as one of the greatest actors to ever practice the craft and a guiding light in independent cinema as a star in groundbreaking movies by her director husband, John Cassavetes, and later charmed audiences in her son’s tear-jerker “The Notebook,” has died. She was 94.
Rowlands’ death was confirmed to CBS News by a representative for her son, filmmaker Nick Cassavetes. He revealed earlier this year that his mother had Alzheimer’s disease.
Operating outside the studio system, the husband-and-wife team of John Cassavetes and Rowlands created indelible portraits of working-class strivers and small-timers in such films as “A Woman Under the Influence,” “Gloria” and “Faces.”
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Rowlands made 10 films across four decades with Cassavetes, including “Minnie and Moskowitz” in 1971, “Opening Night” in 1977 and “Love Streams” in 1984.
She earned two Oscar nods for two of them: 1974’s “A Woman Under the Influence,” in which she played a wife and mother cracking under the burden of domestic harmony, and “Gloria” in 1980, about a woman who helps a young boy escape the mob.
“He had a particular sympathetic interest in women and their problems in society, how they were treated and how they solved and overcame what they needed to, so all his movies have some interesting women, and you don’t need many,” she told the AP in 2015.
In addition to the Oscar nominations, Rowlands earned three Primetime Emmy Awards, one Daytime Emmy and two Golden Globes. She was awarded an honorary Academy Award in 2015 in recognition of her work and legacy in Hollywood. “You know what’s wonderful about being an actress? You don’t just live one life,” she said at the podium. “You live many lives.”
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A new generation was introduced to Rowlands in her son’s blockbuster “The Notebook,” in which she played a woman whose memory is ravaged, looking back on a romance for the ages. Her younger self was portrayed by Rachel McAdams. (She also appeared in Nick Cassavetes’ “Unhook the Stars” in 1996.)
In her later years, Rowlands made several appearances in films and TV, including in “The Skeleton Key” and the detective series “Monk.” Her last appearance in a movie was in 2014, playing a retiree who befriends her gay dance instructor in “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.”
One of her career triumphs was 1974’s “Woman Under the Influence,” playing a lower middle-class housewife who, the actress said, “was totally vulnerable and giving; she had no sense of her own worth.” In “Gloria” (1980) she portrayed a faded showgirl menaced by her ex-boyfriend, a mobster boss. She was Oscar-nominated as best actress for both performances.
She and Cassavetes met at the American School of Dramatic Arts when both their careers were beginning. They married four months later. In 1960 Cassavetes used his earnings from the TV series “Johnny Stacatto” to finance his first film, “Shadows.” Partly improvised, shot with natural light on New York locations with a $40,000 budget, it was applauded by critics for its stark realism.
Gena (pronounced Jenna) Rowlands became a seasoned actor through live television drama and tours in “The Seven Year Itch” and “Time for Ginger” as well as off-Broadway.
Her big break came when Josh Logan cast her opposite Edward G. Robinson in Paddy Chayefsky’s play “Middle of the Night.” Her role as a young woman in love with her much older boss brought reviews hailing her as a new star.
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MGM offered her a contract for two pictures a year. Her first film, a comedy directed by and costarring Jose Ferrer, “The High Cost of Loving,” brought Rowlands comparisons to one of the great 1930s stars, Carole Lombard.
But she asked to be released from her contract because she was expecting a baby. Often during her career she would absent herself from the screen for long stretches to attend to family matters.
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.
AP / Douglas C. Pizac
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.
A man who failed in an attempt to break into Brazil’s Supreme Court killed himself in explosions outside the building Wednesday that forced justices and staff to evacuate, authorities said.
The two strong blasts were heard about 7:30 p.m. after the day’s session finished and all the justices and staff left the building safely, Brazil’s Supreme Court said in a statement.
Local firefighters confirmed one man died at the scene in the capital Brasilia, but did not identify him.
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Celina Leão, the lieutenant governor of Brazil’s federal district, said the suspect had earlier detonated explosives in a car in a Congress parking lot, which did not cause injuries.
“His first action was to explode the car. Then he approached the Supreme Court and tried to get in the building. He failed and then there were the other explosions,” Leão said in a news conference.
Local media reported that the car that exploded belonged to a member of Brazil’s Liberal Party, the same of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Leão said only investigations will determine whether the owner of the car is the same man who died in the blasts.
Leão recommended that Congress be closed Thursday to avoid new risks. Brazil’s Senate heeded her call and the lower house will be shut until noon, speaker Arthur Lira said.
“It could have been a lone wolf, like others we’ve seen around the world,” Leão said in a news conference. “We are considering it as a suicide because there was only one victim. But investigations will show if that was indeed the case.”
Leão added only forensics will be able to identify the body, which remained outside the Supreme Court for three hours after the blasts.
The blasts outside the Supreme Court took place about 20 seconds apart in Brasilia’s Three Powers Plaza, where Brazil’s main government buildings, including the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace, are located.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was not in the neighboring presidential palace at the time, spokesman José Chrispiniano said.
Police blocked all access to the area and the presidential security bureau was conducting a sweep of the grounds around the presidential palace.
Brazil’s federal police said it is investigating and did not provide a motive.
The Supreme Court in recent years has become a target for threats by far-right groups and supporters of Bolsonaro’s due to its crackdown on the spread of false information. In particular, Justice Alexandre de Moraes has been a focus for their ire.
Lula’s spokesman said that late on Wednesday the leftist leader was gathering at the presidential residence with federal police chief Andrei Rodrigues, and Supreme Court Justices de Moraes and Cristiano Zanin.
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What to know about Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy
Donald Trump is vowing to reduce wasteful federal spending by tapping two billionaires — Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — to spearhead the initiative, which the president-elect is calling the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The appointments, announced by Trump on Tuesday, raise a host of questions about the effort, including whether Musk and Ramaswamy will have the authority to make changes in federal outlays, given that Congress authorizes the nation’s spending, as well as where the businessmen might look to cut spending. Under the plan, meanwhile, DOGE is not an official government department, raising questions about how its powers and how it will operate.
The announcement comes a week after Trump won a second term as president, with voters expressing their dissatisfaction with the economy under the Biden administration. As part of his campaign vows, Trump promised to slash government spending. Musk’s bio on X, the social media platform he bought in 2022, now reads, “The people voted for major government reform.”
“Frankly, it does need to be done again, so every few decades you really need to look at everything,” Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution who managed the Clinton Administration’s National Performance Review, an effort to cut government spending in the 1990s, told CBS MoneyWatch.
But Kamarck also harbors reservations about Musk and Ramaswamy’s mandate, especially after the former recently suggested he could find more than $2 trillion in savings — almost one-third of the federal government’s $6.7 trillion in annual spending. Two-thirds of that spending is mandatory through programs including Social Security and Medicare, while discretionary spending is largely spent on defense.
“This is the first warning sign that this is going to be a failed operation,” Kamarck said. “That’s insane.”
The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Here’s what to know about the Department of Government Efficiency.
What is the Department of Government Efficiency?
Trump announced the DOGE in a statement on Tuesday, describing it as an effort to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
The name is a nod to Musk’s support for a cryptocurrency called dogecoin, which was created as a joke by two software engineers and uses the image of a smiling Shiba Inu dog. (Dogecoin has more than tripled in price during the last month, and now trades at 38 cents.)
Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy’s work “will conclude no later than July 4, 2026,” or by the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Trump only outlined the initiative’s contours and didn’t disclose how it will be staffed or funded. The Trump campaign didn’t respond to a request about the DOGE’s funding or whether Musk or Ramaswamy will be paid for their work on the effort.
Can the DOGE actually cut federal spending?
At the moment, that appears unlikely given that the DOGE isn’t a real government department, which would need to be created by congressional approval. Federal spending is authorized by Congress, and senators and House representatives may hesitate to support cuts to major programs like Social Security or Medicare, which are popular with millions of voters, or to the nation’s military.
It’s also not clear how the organization will operate. It could come under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which dictates how external groups that advise the government must operate and be accountable to the public.
Trump described Musk and Ramaswamy’s role as providing “advice and guidance from outside of government.”
That doesn’t amount to much, Kamarck said.
“They have no authority — none whatsoever,” she added, while noting that the backing of the president can help convince lawmakers to throw their support behind efficiency efforts.
What have Musk and Ramaswamy said about federal spending?
Musk, the world’s richest person with a net worth of $319 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has described the U.S. government as bloated and said it its spending is unsustainable. The Tesla founder also said he wants to reduce the number of federal agencies to 99, down from more than 400.
“There are so many [agencies] that people have never heard of, and that have overlapping areas of responsibilities,” Musk said earlier this month.
While on the campaign trail with Trump, Musk also said he could cut “at least $2 trillion” from the annual budget. “Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency will fix that,” Musk said.
Musk is known for cost-cutting at his own companies, slashing most of X’s workforce after he bought the business two years ago as well as focusing on manufacturing costs at Tesla. Even so, those efforts have had mixed results, with X’s valuation falling by about 80% since his purchase. Tesla’s stock price, meanwhile, has surged 48% in the past year, bumping its value above $1 trillion.
Ramaswamy, whom Forbes says has a net worth of about $1 billion, dropped out of the presidential race in January after running on an “anti-woke” campaign. He also advocated for government cuts by eliminating the Department of Education, a goal shared by President-elect Trump.
Have administrations previously tried to cut costs?
Yes, both Republican and Democratic presidents have created efforts to cut government spending.
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan created the Grace Commission, led by wealthy businessman J. Peter Grace, the CEO of W. R. Grace & Company, a chemicals business. About 150 business people volunteered for the commission, which ultimately recommended 2,500 reforms, according to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
“Most of the recommendations, especially those requiring legislation from Congress, were never implemented,” the library notes. “However, the Commission’s work provided a starting point for many conservative critiques of the federal government.”
In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton created the National Performance Review with the goal to create a government that would work better and cost less, Kamarck said. The group was staffed with civil servants who understood the bureaucracy, and many of whom had frustrations with it, she added.
The group had some successes in streamlining operations and paring costs, eventually cutting more than 300,000 jobs, according to a study from the Congressional Research Service. Kamarck noted that the group also focused on integrating technology into departments at a time when the internet was just emerging, leading to efficiencies such as online tax filing.
Where could the Trump administration cut spending?
While experts are skeptical of Musk’s claim he can cut $2 trillion in spending, they also point out there are opportunities to look at efficiencies.
Eliminating Medicare fraud is one area that could result in savings, according to the Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan group that looks at government spending. Its recommendations also include reducing the nation’s contributions to the U.N. and ending subsidies for some agricultural products, like dairy and sugar. Its projected savings: $377 billion in the first year, or about 19% of the $2 trillion that Musk is eyeballing.
But efficiency goes beyond cost-cutting, Kamarck noted. It’s also about understanding how the bureaucracy works,
“Every single thing in the federal government is big and complicated, and there are layers and layers of complexity,” she noted. “Al Gore and I relied on hundreds of experienced civil servants to tell us how this worked — and if you don’t do this, which I suspect they won’t because Musk is an arrogant billionaire, you will fail.”
Does Musk have conflicts of interest?
Yes, as Musk’s SpaceX works with the Department of Defense and NASA, with the federal government pledging $3 billion to his companies last year, according to the New York Times. Tesla, meanwhile, has been investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as well as by other agencies.
Federal employees are generally required to disclose their financial assets and entanglements to ward off any potential conflicts of interest, and to divest significant holdings relating to their work. Because Musk and Ramaswamy would not be formal federal workers, they would not face those requirements or ethical limitations.
contributed to this report.