Entertainment
Gena Rowlands, the unsung lady of independent cinema and wife of late director John Cassavetes, has died
Award-winning actor Gena Rowlands, whose appearances in “A Woman Under the Influence,” “Gloria” and “The Notebook” were among her many celebrated collaborations with her late husband, John Cassavetes, and their son, Nick, died Wednesday at her home in Indian Wells after a years-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 94.
Rowland’s death was confirmed by the office of Danny Greenberg, Nick Cassavetes’ agent at WME. No other details are available at this time.
An often unsung actor of quality and consummate talent, Rowlands earned glowing reviews for her film and TV work — which spanned six decades — especially the projects she worked on with her husband — earning Oscar nominations for her leading roles in his acclaimed 1974 drama “A Woman Under the Influence” and the 1980 crime thriller “Gloria” — and two films directed by her son, “Unhook the Stars” and “The Notebook.”
Rowlands embodied tough cookies, glamour girls and grandes dames, with suburban housewives in between. She shifted easily between John Cassavetes’ shoot-from-the-hip style of filmmaking and the tightly controlled world of network television.
“What’s great about being an actress is you don’t just live one life, you live many lives,” Rowlands said on accepting her honorary Oscar in 2015. “You are not just stuck with yourself all of your life.”
Toward the end of her life, Rowlands battled Alzheimer’s disease and its characteristic dementia. In June 2024, while commemorating the 20th anniversary of “The Notebook,” Nick Cassavetes revealed his mother’s illness.
“For the last five years, she’s had Alzheimer’s,” he said at the time, adding, “She’s in full dementia.”
Despite a lengthy string of widely praised performances, Rowlands never became a superstar and never appeared — and, perhaps, never wished to have appeared — in a blockbuster film. Just the same, many critics and contemporaries regarded her as one of the era’s finest actors.
“I really think she’s the finest film actress of her generation or any other generation,” director Arthur Allan Seidelman told The Times in 2014. “Every moment she gives you is totally truthful and comes from insight into a character. She has the ability of really putting herself in that character.”
Not surprisingly, her career was entwined with the work of her husband, whom she met at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York in 1951 and married three years later. Their decades-long union yielded 10 films and three children before John Cassavetes’ death in 1989.
“When I met John, I didn’t know whether he was actually taken by me or the red velvet strapless dress I was wearing,” she told The Times in 1996. “But from there, we went on to have 31 fantastic years, three children, a wonderful working relationship. We lived the way we wanted to.”
Rowlands and Cassavetes teamed up for the first time in 1955’s “Time for Love,” she playing a humble small-town girl, he a traveling salesman who sweeps her off her feet. In another appearance with Cassavetes, “Won’t It Ever Be Morning?” she portrays a jazz singer who finds herself on the witness stand when her devoted manager is wrongly accused of murder.
As a ranking member of Cassavetes’ informal company of actors, which included Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara and Seymour Cassel, Rowlands often was the face of her husband’s films at a time when many roles for women were reserved for blond bombshells.
Together they were hailed as independent-cinema royalty, operating outside the controlling and predictable studio system. The couple mortgaged their Hollywood Hills home again and again to finance his films, she said, in an effort to remain independent from the tight reins of Hollywood.
After Cassavetes died in 1989, at age 59, her son asked his mother to star in a film he was making, 1996’s “Unhook the Stars,” in which she played a middle-aged woman finally free of her family obligations.
Her late husband “wrote wonderful parts for women, and of course, I got them,” she told The Times at the time. “So it is very emotional and satisfying to have a son who puts a script in my lap and says, ‘Mother, let’s make this movie.’”
“Mom was hip,” Nick Cassavetes wrote in a 2000 piece for the L.A. Times Magazine. “God, she was beautiful. With her skinny little legs and her Ungaro outfits and the big Jackie O sunglasses. And the hair. Dad used to call her ‘Golden Girl.’”
Born Virginia Cathryn Rowlands in Madison, Wis., on June 19, 1930, the actor was the daughter of Edwin Rowlands, a Wisconsin state senator, and Mary Allen Neal, a homemaker. Her older brother, David Rowlands, also was an actor. Later in life, her mother launched a stage career using the name Lady Rowlands.
Rowlands attended the University of Wisconsin before moving to New York City to study drama. She met John Cassavetes after an audition for the American Academy at Carnegie Hall.
She also worked in repertory theater and made her Broadway debut opposite Edward G. Robinson in “Middle of the Night” in 1956. She made her big-screen debut in Jose Ferrer’s 1958 drama “The High Cost of Loving.”
Reading is what initially drew Rowlands to the dramatic arts. She was a sickly child and used her idle time to read voraciously. The lives of the characters she read about made her want to act. She found such a character in Mabel Longhetti, the increasingly erratic housewife in “A Woman Under the Influence” who struggles to hang onto her delicate mental equilibrium.
The drama is considered by many to be the greatest triumph of the Cassavetes-Rowlands collaborations, and it earned Oscar nominations for both.
“It was sort of a difficult role,” Rowlands said. “But I like difficult roles.”
Though she was forever associated with the Cassavetes projects — “Faces” and “Love Streams” among them — she worked with other directors as well, including Woody Allen in “Another Women,” and on various TV projects, such as “An Early Frost” and “The Betty Ford Story,” for which she won an Emmy. She also won Emmys for “Face of a Stranger” and “Hysterical Blindness.”
She won a Daytime Emmy for her role in “The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie.” In 2007, she appeared in “Broken English,” an independent film directed by her daughter Zoe Cassavetes.
The opportunity to play embattled First Lady Betty Ford in the 1987 TV movie also offered Rowlands the type of challenge she appreciated. “I like to play people who have a very strong emotional commitment to something,” she told The Times in 1987.
Rowlands won an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar in 2015. Her son presented her with the award. The Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. honored her with a career achievement award the next year.
Rowlands also endeared herself to a new generation of fans with her brief appearance in “The Notebook,” her son’s 2004 adaptation of the weepy Nicholas Sparks love story starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling.
“I didn’t think it would have that kind of impact,” Rowlands said of the film in a 2016 Variety interview. “I think it was such a big hit because it was about the realization that love can last your whole life. You don’t see it depicted that way a lot. In most films you don’t get to see a story like that go from the beginning to the end with the possibility that love can be, perhaps, eternal.”
Besides her son, Rowlands is survived by second husband Robert Forrest, daughters Alexandra and Zoe and several grandchildren. Her brother, David Rowlands, died in 2000.
Kathy Hilton will no longer be the grand marshal of West Hollywood’s pride parade.
The city and WeHo Pride on Wednesday released a joint statement, announcing that “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star would no longer serve as the Grand Marshal Icon for the 2026 WeHo Pride Parade. The event is scheduled for Sunday.
“After thoughtful discussions, the City of West Hollywood, the WeHo Pride production team, and Kathy Hilton have determined that the 2026 WeHo Pride Parade will not designate a Grand Marshal Icon honoree,” read the statement.
The decision comes less than a week after Hilton was announced. That May 28 announcement was met with swift backlash from the LGBTQ+ community and allies, who called out Hilton’s ties to President Trump and alleged MAGA-leaning politics. Critics also cited accusations that the socialite had used a homophobic slur while on a trip with other cast members of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” an action she has previously denied.
In their joint statement, West Hollywood and the WeHo Pride team expressed their appreciation for “the respectful and sincere dialogue” around both the event and the “role and significance” of Pride honorees.
“The City of West Hollywood has always believed that Pride belongs to the community,” the joint statement said. “Since its earliest days, Pride has served as both a celebration and a platform for activism, visibility, resilience, and the ongoing pursuit of equality, dignity, and justice for LGBTQ+ people. … These conversations reflect the passion people have for WeHo Pride and underscore the importance of ensuring that WeHo Pride continues to honor the history, values, and diverse voices of the LGBTQ+ community.”
In a statement, Hilton expressed gratitude for being considered for grand marshal and reaffirmed her commitment to the LGBTQ+ community and causes.
“My reason for wanting to be involved in this year’s WeHo Pride weekend was simple: to celebrate, support, and share in the joy of a community that means a great deal to so many people,” Hilton said. “Pride is, and always will be, about celebrating and uplifting LGBTQ+ voices, experiences, and achievements. … My support for the community and WeHo Pride is unwavering.”
She also mentioned several queer advocacy organizations and events she has supported over the years, including GLAAD, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, Dr. Mathilde Krim, God’s Love We Deliver and Project Angel Food.
The latest Pride-related dust-up follows the abrupt cancellation of the Long Beach Pride Festival in May. The city’s Pride Parade took place as planned.
Both snafus have occurred as conservative politicians and advocates continue to attack LGBTQ+ rights and visibility nationwide. Some Republican governors have even pushed for conservative alternatives to Pride month festivities. A recent Gallup poll has found that after years of steady gains, support for marriage equality and same-sex relationships has slipped, particularly among Republicans.
Movie Reviews
Movie Review: Travolta’s “Propeller: One-Way Night Coach” is One for the Ages — All Ages
Back in the good ol’days — the ’90s — John Travolta would love to get off the topic of “Michael,” “Pulp Fiction” or “Get Shorty” in interviews with film journalists like me and regale us with how utterly besotted he had been with his first flying experience, how that drove his passion for piloting and buying planes and airfield-adjacent luxury houses.
He didn’t even seem to mind having to move house when this or that development balked at him flying his Boeing 707 out of there on the way to locations.
Travolta would tell any journalist who asked that he was writing a kid-friendly book, “Propeller: One Way Night Coach,” based on his first flights as a child in old propeller driven airliners — cheap red-eye overnight treks with too many connections for your average jet age traveller to tolerate.
I remember picking up the book when it came out later in the ’90s — at an airport gift shop — and thinking “Well, that’s as cute as I figured.”
And now, decades later and trapped in the B-movie hell of his post “Gotti” career, Travolta’s turned that cute book into the most delightful, fanciful and colorful bon bon of a movie.
“One Way Night Coach” is a child’s fantasy of flight and flying the way it used to be — with pristine, uncrowded, futuristic airports, an early ’60s era of jets and prop planes with over-uniformed stewardesses in white gloves, the days “Back before every Joe Sweatsock could wedge himself behind a lunch tray and jet off to Raleigh-Durham,” as Sideshow Bob memorably sneered on “The Simpsons’.”
It’s a fictionalized account of Travolta’s childhood about an only child (at least two Travolta siblings have bit parts in this movie) of a never-made-it/never-will actress/single-mom (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett) who indulges her aviation-obsessed eight-year-old with a cheap cross-country overnight flight.
Little Jeff (Clark Shotwell) will revel in almost every Idlewild to Pittsburgh to Dayton to Chicago to Kansas City to Denver and Los Angeles minute. He strolls into the cockpit to meet pilots, charms the stewardesses and checks out the sleeping bunks on the TWA Lockheed Super Constellation, loving even the delays if not the Chicken Cordon Bleu he’s offered on legs of the journey that offer a meal.
And as he’s an observant child, he comments (Travolta narrates) on his 50ish mother’s vamping and posing, her choice of cigarettes (Newports) and drinks, the solo traveling men whose attention she pursues and earns.
“I was her best audience,” adult Jeff remembers of the mother who’d read him plays as bedtime stories and delusionally hopes that this trip to Los Angeles might be her “big break” even though she’s pushing 50.
“Hollywood called,” she’d explain about their overnight cheap flight arrangements to ticket agents and crew. “They told me to take the next flight!”
At every turn, Jeff meets or sees kindness — stewardesses who indulge his many questions and bump them up to first class on the mostly-empty planes, a captain who fixes his toy model of a Constellation, a mentally ill flyer who flips out but is calmed by a flight attendant who isn’t overworked and frazzled in jet-powered tin-can jammed with Joe and Jane Sweatsocks who think nothing of traveling in their pajamas.
Normally, I cringe at pictures this reliant on voice-over narration. I recoil from stars who populate their picture with Sandler etc. offspring. But “Propeller” is unfailingly sweet and never cloying.
Sure, it’s fictionalized. But if you’ve followed Travolta’s life and career, a lot of him is in this — his raptoruous engagement with flying, an indulged child who developed a taste for fine food and creature comforts, a mother who was his guiding star as an actor.
I get why there are less adoring reviews than mine floating around “Propeller.” It’s unfailingly sweet. Mom’s man-hunting is seriously dated. This TWA tale is decorated with Gershwin’s majestic “Rhapsody in Blue” — United Airlines’ signature tune. And Travolta’s been around long enough for recent generations to come up and not feel a connection to the “Saturday Night Fever/Get Shorty” star whose career has fallen off and life has been visited by too much tragedy.
But I’d hate to be seated next to anybody who doesn’t appreciate this adorable, pristine and nearly perfect aviation fantasy on any flight, much less an overnight one.
Rating: TV-PG
Cast: Clark Shotwell, Kelly Eviston-Quinnett, Ellen Travolta, Ella Beau Travolta, Olga Hoffmann and John Travolta.
Credits: Scripted and directed by John Travolta, based on his book. An Apple TV+ release.
Running time: 1:01
Three years ago, Mattel Inc. struck box-office gold — or rather, pink — with the billion-dollar success of “Barbie.”
In its first return to theaters since the female-forward phenomenon, the El Segundo toymaker is turning to the brawny He-Man for another box-office lift.
Its latest film, “Masters of the Universe,” opens this weekend, as Mattel looks to build on that previous success and continue extending its signature toy brands into the entertainment arena.
“The movie is very much in tune with culture,” said Mattel Chief Executive Ynon Kreiz. “Everything is much more contemporary relative to what was created more than 40 years ago, but it’s still very true to the origin story and to the DNA of the brand.”
The new film arrives at a pivotal time for Mattel, which is facing pressure from investors to grow its business. The maker of Hot Wheels, American Girl and Uno has recently confronted a challenging market for toys, beset by tariffs on goods produced overseas and weaker-than-expected demand for Barbie dolls and Fisher-Price preschool products.
Amid uncertainty in the toy market and the fallout from tariffs, Mattel’s net income dropped 25% to $398 million in 2025. And since the company announced disappointing holiday sales totals in February, its stock has dropped more than 30%, closing at $14.34 on Wednesday.
“Masters of the Universe” toys at Mattel headquarters in El Segundo.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The share price slide prompted investor Southeastern Asset Management to send a letter last month to Mattel leadership suggesting the toy maker should sell itself and go private. Southeastern manages about 4% of the company’s stock on behalf of its clients.
“The frustration among investors has been the fact that if you look at the business from 2021 through 2025 and even this year … the business really hasn’t grown,” said Eric Handler, a Roth Capital senior media and entertainment analyst, referring to Mattel. “This is a company that needed something fresh in the portfolio, and there’s a wide range of investments being made, of which ‘Masters of the Universe’ is one part.”
Kreiz pushed back on the idea that the company is not growing. In the fourth quarter of 2025, net sales were up 7% to $1.8 billion, though the result was not as strong as the company expected.
Mattel has spent $1.2 billion in the last three years to buy back shares, with an additional $1.5-billion share repurchase planned for the next three years.
“We’re investing in our own stock because we believe it is undervalued,” he told The Times in an interview at his office, which has floor-to-ceiling windows that give an expansive view of El Segundo. “We absolutely agree that the share price doesn’t reflect the progress that we’ve achieved over the last few years financially, operationally, our place in culture, the strength of our brands, and the continued expansion of the business. And more importantly, the potential that we have down the road.”
“Masters of the Universe” is a key variable in that equation.
Ynon Kreiz, chief executive of Mattel.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The movie, which had a budget of roughly $170 million, is expected to bring in $25 million to $35 million in the U.S. and Canada during its debut weekend. That’s a far cry from the $162-million opening haul of “Barbie,” but box-office analysts say that film captured the cultural zeitgeist in a way that’s hard to replicate.
The ‘80s-era “Masters of the Universe” is “a property that was famous with a certain group of fans, but it hasn’t had much of a pop culture presence,” said Shawn Robbins, who directs movie analytics at Fandango and founded the forecasting site Box Office Theory. The movie has notched a respectable 74% approval rating from critics on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
“There’s been so many callbacks to nostalgic franchises,” he said. “Some people are always on board for them, and maybe the positive reviews bring people in who were on the fence. But people are also ready for something fresh and new and exciting.”
Kreiz said he’s often asked how the company will match the success of “Barbie.”
“The answer is, we don’t need to match ‘Barbie’s’ success for movies to have a meaningful economic impact on the company,” he said. “Not every movie will be ‘Barbie.’ If we create quality content that people want to watch and create quality experiences that people are engaged with, good things happen, and these brands will resonate and will be here for years to come.”
While theatrical revenue is important, the measure of success for “Masters of the Universe” could also include its eventual reception on streaming platforms and, of course, toy sales, analysts said.
There are hundreds of products tied to the movie, from collectible action figures of Nicholas Galitzine’s He-Man and Camila Mendes’ Teela, to branded Uno decks, Legos, clothing and skateboards.
Skeletor from “Masters of the Universe.”
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“For us, it’s a huge win already,” said Robbie Brenner, president of Mattel Studios and chief content officer, who also served as a producer on the film. “We have reinvigorated and relaunched this brand that has been around for decades … and done it in a way with just the best-in-class toys. Obviously that’s our bread and butter. And then to have made an epic, incredible movie … is a huge win.”
While Mattel does not yet have sales totals for its “Masters of the Universe” toys, executives said during an earnings call in late April that product sales were “growing double digits” amid strong customer demand, particularly from adults.
When Kreiz was named CEO in 2018, he saw the potential for Mattel to expand beyond toys. In an entertainment landscape dominated by known franchises and intellectual property, the former TV and media executive wanted to leverage the company’s IP in new ways to attract consumers.
Hence, Mattel has expanded into real-world experiences such as a Barbie pop-up at Coachella or a traveling Hot Wheels monster truck show. In February, the company fully acquired Mattel163 mobile game studio after buying out a stake held by Chinese tech firm NetEase. The studio has released games based on Uno, Skip-Bo and other Mattel intellectual property.
And on the film and television front, the Mattel Studios division now has 51 people — most of whom are based in El Segundo — focused on projects across platforms.
After “Masters of the Universe,” Mattel Studios plans to release a “Matchbox” streaming movie in October. The division has more than a dozen films in development that have been announced, including an American Girl movie with Paramount, Polly Pocket with Amazon MGM Studios, as well as a live-action Magic 8 Ball series from M. Night Shyamalan.
“The journey for the company was to evolve from being a toy manufacturer that was making items to become an IP company that is managing franchises,” Kreiz said. “It’s not that we’re not creating toys — it’s obviously a big part of our business — but the opportunity is to expand so much more than the physical product.”
“Masters of the Universe” was in development for years at several different studios before it was picked up by Amazon MGM.
That partnership stemmed from Mattel’s work on the “Barbie” movie with Courtenay Valenti, then president of production and development at Warner Bros. Pictures who is now head of film at Amazon MGM.
“Masters of the Universe” felt like a good property for Mattel to bet on because of its nostalgia factor and deep bench of colorful characters, from the green tiger Battle Cat to the heavily armored Ram Man and ever meme-able Skeletor, which the company hopes will attract new audiences, Brenner said.
The movie is directed by Travis Knight — chief executive of stop-motion studio Laika who also led the 2018 “Transformers” spin-off “Bumblebee” — who Brenner said “nailed” the narrative’s tone. (It didn’t hurt that Knight was already a fan of the franchise and had sported the He-Man haircut as a child.)
“It’s a property that’s kind of out there,” said Brenner, who grew up watching He-Man and his twin sister She-Ra. “It’s got all these crazy characters. But just riding that line between what is funny and kind of irreverent and then kind of heartfelt, that is a very hard thing to put in a blender and to get right.”
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Kathy Hilton won’t be WeHo Pride’s grand marshal after backlash from community
