Zazu Pitts

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. She was recently in The Notebook, which was directed by her son, Nick Cassavetes. They had two children: a daughter, Ann Gallery, and a son, Don Gallery (ne Marvin Carville La Marr), whom they adopted after the death of his mother, actress Barbara La Marr. In recent years she has appeared in Paulie and in Mira Nair's HBO movie, Hysterical Blindness. Pitts was married to actor Tom Gallery from 1920 to 1932. She starred in The Neon Bible. She was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City. 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).

ZaSu Pitts died of cancer in Hollywood, California at age 69. In 1961 she starred in the well-received television series 87th Precinct, and in 1964 in Peyton Place. From the 1940s through the early 1960s ZaSu Pitts also made numerous television appearances, including her role in The Gale Storm Show, Oh! Susanna (1956-1960), with Gale Storm. She starred in several anthology television series, including Robert Montgomery Presents, Kraft Television Theatre and Studio One, among many others. When Mae Questel was called on to create the screen voice of the character "Olive Oyl" for the Fleischer Studios animated cartoon version of the comic strip "Popeye", Questel created a caricature of Zazu Pitts' voice. Rowlands appeared in Broadway in the late 1950s, and made her film debut in The High Cost of Loving in 1958. When Hollywood switched to talkies, Pitts, who had a distinctive nasal voice with a wavering vibrato, switched to comedy character actor roles. Her father was a state Assemblyman.

Von Stroheim also featured her in The Wedding March and Walking Down Broadway. Born Virginia Cathryn Rowlands in Cambria, Wisconsin, she attended the University of Wisconsin. Perhaps her most famous early role was in Erich von Stroheim's Greed (1925). Gena Rowlands (born June 19, circa 1930) is an American actress. Pitts debuted in silent film in 1917, including a number of leading roles. Her unusual first name was coined from parts of the names "Eliza" and "Susan", female relatives who both wanted ZaSu's mother to name the child after them.

ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas and grew up in Santa Cruz, California. In many of her film credits and contemporary articles, her name is rendered as Zazu Pitts. ZaSu Pitts (3 January 1894 - 7 June 1963) was a United States movie actress.