Gena Rowlands accepts Lifetime Achievement Award
Photos by Katherine Rountree and Daniel Cheon
Last night, actress Gena Rowlands accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Savannah Film Festival. SCAD president and co-founder Paula Wallace welcomed her onto the Trustees Theater stage just before the screening of “The Imitation Game.”
“We’re here this evening to honor a legend of stage and screen who brings a trademark vulnerability to every character she portrays,” Wallace said in her introduction.
“Gena is the ultimate matriarch – unflappable and all-seeing,” she added, specifically citing Rowlands’ role in “Something to Talk About” (1995), which was filmed partly in Savannah.
Rowlands’ 60-year-long acting career has covered Broadway, more than 105 film and television roles, 25 awards won (including two Golden Globes and four Emmys) and 20 award nominations (including two Academy Award best actress nominations). Married to equally famous actor-director John Cassavetes until his death, she became matriarch to a family full of filmmakers – director, actor and screenwriter Nick Cassavetes, actress and director Alexandra Cassavetes, and director, actress and screenwriter Zoe Cassavetes. Rowlands made 10 films with her husband and acted under the direction of her son Nick in “The Notebook” and “Yellow” and her daughter Zoe in “Broken English.” Besides “The Notebook,” younger audiences might recognize her from one-shot roles in shows such as “NCIS” and “Monk.”
After Wallace’s introduction, they played a series of clips from Rowlands’ many and diverse films. When Rowlands herself took the stage, the audience greeted her with thunderous applause and a standing ovation. She waited patiently for them to die down and take their seats, then leaned into the mic and opened with a dry “Hey.”
She maintained that straightforward brevity throughout her speech, in which she expressed what a great time she’s had in Savannah and called the award “astounding.”
“You guys should be the ones to get the award,” Rowlands told the crowd. “You’re the best audiences I’ve ever seen anywhere.”
“I want to thank the citizens of Savannah and SCAD and the festival … and all the students,” she continued. “I just don’t know what to say except ‘thank you.’ And so I’m not going to say it again.”
She tried to make her exit then, but there appeared to be a little confusion. People backstage turned her back to the stage and she spent a few uncertain moments flipping through the papers on the podium and joking that it was an “unusual evening.”
Finally, after a brief word with someone backstage, Rowlands faced the audience for the last time.
“Thank. You,” she said. “And I mean it. From the you-know-what.”
She touched her heart, blew a kiss and left.
