Gena Rowlands

She was recently in The Notebook, which was directed by her son, Nick Cassavetes. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame at 7020 Hollywood Boulevard. In recent years she has appeared in Paulie and in Mira Nair's HBO movie, Hysterical Blindness. Sheridan was married four times, including a marriage lasting one year to the actor George Brent. She starred in The Neon Bible. She became ill during the filming of the first season, and died from esophageal and liver cancer in Woodland Hills, California. Teaming with her husband, writer and director John Cassavetes, Rowlands starred in many productions, including Staccato, A Child Is Waiting, Faces, Gloria (nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress), Love Streams, Minnie and Moskowitz, She's So Lovely, Two Minute Warning and A Woman Under the Influence (Academy Award nomination). She appeared in the television soap opera Another World during the mid sixties, and then started a role in the television series Pistols and Petticoats.

In 1961 she starred in the well-received television series 87th Precinct, and in 1964 in Peyton Place. Her role in I Was A Male War Bride (1949) gave her another success but by the fifties she was struggling to find work and her film roles were sporadic. She starred in several anthology television series, including Robert Montgomery Presents, Kraft Television Theatre and Studio One, among many others. Despite these successes, her career began to decline. Rowlands appeared in Broadway in the late 1950s, and made her film debut in The High Cost of Loving in 1958. She received substantial roles and positive reaction from critics and moviegoers in such films as Angels With Dirty Faces (1938 opposite James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart), Dodge City (1939 opposite Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland), Torrid Zone and They Drive By Night ( both 1940), The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942 opposite Bette Davis) and Kings Row (1942 where she received top billing playing opposite Ronald Reagan, Robert Cummings and Betty Field). Her father was a state Assemblyman. Her career prospects began to improve and tagged The Oomph Girl, Sheridan had become a popular pin-up girl by the early forties.

Born Virginia Cathryn Rowlands in Cambria, Wisconsin, she attended the University of Wisconsin. She made her film debut in 1934 in the film Search For Beauty and played uncredited bit parts in Paramount films for the next two years. Paramount made little effort to develop her talent so she left, signing a contract with Warner Brothers in 1936 and changing her name to Ann Sheridan. Gena Rowlands (born June 19, circa 1930) is an American actress. She abandoned college to pursue a career in Hollywood. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a Paramount film. Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas, she was a college student when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Studios.

Ann Sheridan (February 21 - 1915 - January 21, 1967) was an American film actress.