"It’s the people who aren’t artists who sacrifice. Artists somehow stumble onto the best life in the world, and I have no complaints."

Said Gena Rowlands, asked about any "regrets about having sacrificed her life to her art."

Quoted in "Gena Rowlands, Actress Who Brought Raw Drama to Her Roles, Dies at 94/Known for playing on-the-verge characters, she twice earned Oscar nominations for her work in films directed by John Cassavetes, her husband" (NYT).

She sometimes said that if she had not married Mr. Cassavetes, her career might have taken a very different turn: She could have been the blonde in romantic comedies. But, she contended, physical beauty was so common in Hollywood that it was irrelevant. When People magazine named her one of the most beautiful people in the world (she was 69) and asked for beauty tips, she suggested: “Sunglasses are the secret. Sunglasses and a little lipstick will take you to the market.”

Virginia Cathryn Rowlands was born on June 19, 1930, in Madison, Wis....

ADDED: Here's the clip from "A Woman Under the Influence" that I blogged when Peter Falk died in 2011: 

And here's something Mia Farrow wrote that I blogged about in 2009:

One workday, while we were waiting to shoot, Roman [Polanski] was discoursing about the impossibility of long-term monogamy given the brevity of a man's sexual attraction to any woman. An impassioned John Cassavetes responded that Roman knew nothing about women, or relationships, and that he, John, was more attracted than ever to his wife, Gena Rowlands. Roman stared at him and blinked a few times, and for once had no reply.

Let's watch old episodes of "Columbo."

Now that we're thinking about how much we love Peter Falk. Here's the complete first season. Let's start there. I ordered it.

(I never watched the show back when it was on, because I just wasn't a TV-watcher at the time. I either didn't have a TV or only had a small black-and-white TV until 1981. The first season was 1971, when I was in college. We went to movies constantly back then, including "Husbands," one of our favorite movies, which came out in 1970. TV was for kids and old folks, as far as I was concerned. Maybe some news event. But I didn't even watch the moon landing when it was on TV.)

Peter Falk — the man "everybody falls in love with" — has died at the age of 83.

He'd been suffering fron Alzheimer's disease. The quote in the post title is from John Cassavetes, who directed 2 of my favorite Peter Falk movies, "A Woman Under the Influence" and "Husbands."

Here's an amazing scene from "A Woman Under the Influence" with Gena Rowlands:



And here's a scene that has made me laugh for more than 30 years. (It plays with the audio slightly out of synch, but please put up with that. Palladian synched the audio.)

"Take your hand off my hand."

"Take your hand off my hand."

Thanks to Palladian for syncing the audio and video on this clip I wanted to post yesterday — over here.

I'm will bet this is the funniest 3 minutes of comic acting that you've never seen by an actress you've never heard of or seen before:



The movie is "Husbands," and the actress — assuming the role is "The Countess" — is Dolores Delmar. This Wikipedia entry makes me suspect that "Dolores Delmar" is a pseudonym. So who is that lady, about whom Palladian wrote:

What a face that actress has, like it's made of latex, and that gaping mouth. Watch her lip movements. Very, very odd, and compelling.

Anyway, I haven't watched this movie in years, but I loved it when it came out in 1970 and enjoyed parts of it, despite the rambling length, when I watched it a couple decades later. If I was putting together a film series called "Studies of the Male Human Animal," I'd include "Husbands." (And what else?)

Look at the very cool poster:

"Terrible! Unreal! No passion!"

Let's watch a little of "Husbands":



"You're terrible because you want to be terrible."

That's Ben Gazzara, John Cassavetes, and Peter Falk.

Do you like these John Cassavetes movies? Now, or just back in the 70s?