The American actor and filmmaker who financed personal films outside the studio system and built them around the difficult, unfinished behavior of people in families and relationships.
John Cassavetes was an American actor and film director who paid for his own films by acting in other people's. He is generally treated as the founder of American independent cinema.
He was born in New York on 9 December 1929 and died in Los Angeles on 3 February 1989, aged fifty-nine.[1]
He directed twelve features. They were financed out of his acting fees, shot in his own house and his friends' houses, cast largely from a fixed company of people he knew, and edited for years at a time. Most of them lost money on release.
His wife, the actress Gena Rowlands, is at the centre of the best of them. A Woman Under the Influence, in 1974, brought Academy Award nominations for her performance and for his direction, on a film he had to distribute himself because no studio wou[2]ld take it.
John Nicholas Cassavetes was born in New York on 9 December 1929. His parents were Greek immigrants; his father, Nicholas Cassavetes, had come from a village near Larissa and worked as a businessman. The family spoke Greek at home, and John did not speak English until he was about seven.
They lived in Long Island. His father's business failed during the Depression, and the household went from comfortable to poor and back again more than once.
He drifted through college, ended up at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, and graduated in 1950. He met Gena Rowlands there. They married in 1954 and stayed married for thirty-five years, until his death.
Cassavetes worked steadily as a television actor through the 1950s, and in 1957 played the lead in Martin Ritt's Edge of the City. From 1959 he starred in a television series, Johnny Staccato, as a jazz pianist working as a private detective, and directed several episodes of it.
He went on acting for the rest of his life, and he was clear that the reason was money. He appeared in The Dirty Dozen in 1967, which brought him an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor, and in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby in 1968 as the husband who sells his wife to the neighbours. He took parts in films he thought were bad and said so.
The fees went into his own productions. So did mortgages on his house, which he remortgaged more than once to finish a picture.
In 1957 Cassavetes was teaching an acting workshop in New York and let an improvisation run.[3] On a late-night radio programme he mentioned that if listeners each sent a dollar he could make a film from it. Enough money came in to start.
Shadows was shot on 16mm on the streets of New York with a cast of unknowns. It follows three siblings in a Black family, one of them light-skinned enough to pass as white and dating a white man who does not realise it. It was finished in 1957, shown, and then largely rejected by the people who saw it.
Cassavetes reshot most of it and released the second version in 1959. It won a prize at Venice, and it is the version that survives in circulation. Shadows and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless were both largely filmed that year, on opposite sides of the Atlantic and without either director knowing what the other was doing. The film's closing card says that what has been seen is an improvisation, which was only partly true of the second cut and has caused arguments ever since.
Hollywood took an interest, and Cassavetes directed two studio films: Too Late Blues in 1961 and A Child Is Waiting in 1963, the second with Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland, about a school for children with learning disabilities.
Both were taken away from him in the edit. The producer of A Child Is Waiting recut it, and Cassavetes disowned the result publicly.
He never gave a studio final cut again. Most of what followed he financed, shot and released himself, and the loss of control on those two films is the reason. The exceptions came later, when Columbia produced Gloria in 1980 and Big Trouble in 1986.
Faces, released in 1968, was shot in Cassavetes's own house in Los Angeles over six months, on 16mm, with a crew of friends. He then spent three years editing it. It follows a middle-aged husband and wife through one night of separate infidelities, and it runs a hundred and thirty minutes of people talking, laughing too hard and failing to say what they mean.
It cost very little and made money, and it established the method he used for the rest of his life. He worked with the same people repeatedly: Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, Seymour Cassel, Val Avery. His mother Katherine Cassavetes and Rowlands's mother Lady Rowlands both appear in the films.
The performances look improvised and mostly are not. Cassavetes wrote long scripts and rehearsed extensively, then shot in a way that let the actors overlap, interrupt and lose the thread, which is what produces the effect.
Husbands, in 1970, follows three men on a drunk through London after a friend's funeral. Minnie and Moskowitz, in 1971, is a comedy about a museum curator and a car-park attendant.
A Woman Under the Influence, released in 1974, is the film that is usually put first. Gena Rowlands plays Mabel Longhetti, a working-class Los Angeles housewife whose behaviour becomes unbearable to her husband and his family, who have her committed for six months. She comes back, and the film watches everybody try to behave normally.
No distributor would take it. Cassavetes booked it into cinemas himself, drove around the country promoting it, and it made money. Rowlands was nominated for the Academy Award for best actress and Cassavetes for best director.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, in 1976, is about a strip-club owner in debt to gangsters who is told to commit a murder to clear it. Cassavetes recut it substantially in 1978 and the two versions differ considerably.
Opening Night, in 1977, has Rowlands as Myrtle Gordon, a stage actress in rehearsal who watches a young fan die in a car accident outside the theatre and comes apart. It failed on release and is now among the most admired of his films.
Gloria, in 1980, is his most conventional picture: Rowlands as Gloria Swenson, a gangster's ex-girlfriend protecting a small boy from the mob. It won the Golden Lion at Venice. Love Streams, in 1984, won the Golden Bear at Berlin. Big Trouble, in 1986, was a contractual obligation he took over from another director and disowned.
Cassavetes was taken more seriously in France than at home for most of his career. The critics Hubert Knapp and André S. Labarthe filmed him twice for French television, in Hollywood in 1965 and in Paris in 1968, when Faces was released there; the two encounters were later shown together as John Cassavetes (Hollywood 1965, Paris 1968).
The Cinémathèque française mounted retrospectives of his work and still programmes Shadows. The independent method he was working out in New York was recognisable to a French audience that had just watched the New Wave do something comparable.
Cassavetes died of cirrhosis of the liver in Los Angeles on 3 February 1989, aged fifty-nine. He had been ill for several years and had gone on working through it.
He and Gena Rowlands had three children, Nick, Alexandra and Zoe, all of whom went into film. Nick Cassavetes directed his mother in She's So Lovely in 1997, from a script his father had written and never shot.
Cassavetes established that an American film could be made outside the industry entirely — financed privately, shot in a house, cast from friends, edited for as long as it took, and distributed by the director in person. Every part of that was unusual in 1968 and much of it is standard now.
The other thing he changed is what a scene is allowed to do. His films let people talk past the point, repeat themselves, be embarrassing and stay in the room afterwards, and the discomfort is the material rather than a lapse. Directors from Martin Scorsese to Elaine May to the Safdie brothers have worked from that, and the tradition of American acting that values exposure over polish runs directly back to him.
Gloria won the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival in 1980, sharing it that year with Louis Malle's Atlantic City.
The most persistent thing said about Cassavetes is that he improvised his films, and he spent much of his career explaining that he did not. The belief starts with a title card. Shadows ends with the line “The film you have just seen was an improvisation”, and that card describes a 1957 cut which was largely replaced by a 1959 version written with Robert Alan Aurthur. The card stayed on.
He was blunt about it later. People believe so completely in the written word, he said, that when they do not hear one they assume the rest was made up; it was not, and only two lines in A Woman Under the Influence were actually improvised. He thought it funny that critics took the improvisation story seriously, and called it a joke. Ray Carney, who edited his collected interviews, records that Cassavetes pushed the story for publicity.
What the films actually have is rehearsal. He wrote scripts, worked at length with the same actors, and shot in a way that let performances run past where another director would have cut. The looseness is in the shooting and the playing, not in the writing.
Cassavetes acted in other people's films to finance his own, which is the plainest fact about his career and the one that explains its shape. He took the parts to get the money: The Dirty Dozen in 1967, which brought him an Academy Award nomination for supporting actor, and Rosemary's Baby the following year.
For A Woman Under the Influence he mortgaged his house to raise half of the $250,000 budget, and Peter Falk put up the other half out of what he was earning from Columbo. No distributor wanted the finished film, so the company distributed it themselves, booking it cinema by cinema by telephone. Cassavetes said afterwards that they had no wish to be distributors and had only done it because there was no alternative.
The Academy nominated him twice as a filmmaker, for the screenplay of Faces and for directing A Woman Under the Influence. Gloria took the Golden Lion at Venice in 1980, shared with Louis Malle's Atlantic City.
He worked with the same people repeatedly, and the results look less like a director hiring a cast than a company reassembling. Gena Rowlands, whom he married in 1954 and stayed married to until his death, appeared in ten films with him and was directed by him in seven. Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, Seymour Cassel and Val Avery came back again and again.
The casting went further into his own life than most directors would attempt. In A Woman Under the Influence the two mothers are played by his mother, Katherine Cassavetes, and by Gena Rowlands's mother, Lady Rowlands. Films shot in his own house, financed against it, with his wife and both their mothers in them, are about as close as American cinema has come to a family workshop.
French critics took Cassavetes seriously well before American ones did. Cahiers du cinéma covered Faces on its release, Positif ran him at length, and Cahiers placed both Gloria and Love Streams in its films of the year in the 1980s. He was also the American Film Institute's first filmmaker-in-residence.
He was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in 1983 and told he had less than a year. He lived six more, and made Love Streams and Big Trouble in that time. He died on 3 February 1989, aged fifty-nine.
Born in New York on 9 December to Greek immigrant parents. He speaks only Greek until he is about seven.
The family's finances collapse in the Depression and recover more than once through his childhood.
Graduates from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, where he meets Gena Rowlands.
Begins working steadily as a television actor.
Marries Gena Rowlands. The marriage lasts thirty-five years, until his death.
Plays the lead in Martin Ritt's Edge of the City.
Mentions on a late-night radio programme that listeners' dollars could pay for a film, and enough money arrives to start Shadows.
Shoots the first version of Shadows on 16mm in the streets of New York with unknown actors.
Stars in the television series Johnny Staccato as a jazz pianist working as a private detective, and directs several episodes.
Releases a substantially reshot second version of Shadows, which wins a prize at Venice.
Directs Too Late Blues for Paramount, his first studio film.
Directs A Child Is Waiting with Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland. The producer recuts it and Cassavetes disowns the result.
Decides never to work inside a studio again and returns to acting to finance his own films.
Is nominated for the Academy Award for best supporting actor for The Dirty Dozen.
Plays the husband who sells his wife to the neighbours in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby.
Releases Faces, shot in his own house over six months and edited for three years.
Directs Husbands, following three men on a drunk through London after a friend's funeral, and acts in it with Ben Gazzara and Peter Falk.
Directs Minnie and Moskowitz, with Gena Rowlands as a museum curator and Seymour Cassel as a car-park attendant.
Directs A Woman Under the Influence, with Gena Rowlands as a Los Angeles housewife committed for six months.
Distributes A Woman Under the Influence himself after no company will take it, booking cinemas and touring to promote it.
Releases A Woman Under the Influence, starring Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk.
Gena Rowlands is nominated for the Academy Award for best actress and Cassavetes for best director.
Directs The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, about a strip-club owner told to commit a murder to clear his debts.
Directs Opening Night, with Gena Rowlands as a stage actress who comes apart after watching a fan die outside the theatre.
Releases a substantially shorter recut of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
Acts in Brian De Palma's The Fury, one of several parts taken purely to fund his own work.
Directs Gloria, with Gena Rowlands protecting a small boy from the mob. It wins the Golden Lion at Venice.
Directs Love Streams, which wins the Golden Bear at Berlin.
Takes over Big Trouble from another director as a contractual obligation and disowns it.
Continues writing while seriously ill with liver disease.
Dies of cirrhosis in Los Angeles on 3 February, aged fifty-nine.
His son Nick Cassavetes directs Gena Rowlands in She's So Lovely, from a script John wrote and never shot.
The Criterion Collection issues a box set of five of his films, bringing the work to a much wider audience.
People have such a belief in the 'written' word. When they don't hear a 'written' word, particularly in my movies, they think it's improvised. It's not. Only two lines in A Woman Under the Influence were actually improvised.
I thought it was funny when critics took the improvisation thing too seriously. It was a joke.
I don't want to frighten people by showing them tragedy. I've never seen an exploding helicopter, I've never seen anybody go and blow somebody's head off. So why should I make films about them? But I have seen people destroy themselves in the smallest way. I've seen people withdraw.
Film
John Cassavetes's first feature follows three siblings in New York as race, work, and romantic expectations press on their relationships. Made outside the studio system in two substantially different versions, it became an early landmark of postwar American independent film. Its loose surface came from workshop experiments, real locations, reshooting, and exacting editing—not from simply turning on a camera and asking actors to invent everything.
An American actor and film director, born in New York in 1929 and died in Los Angeles in 1989. He directed twelve features, financed almost entirely by his own acting fees, and is generally treated as the founder of American independent cinema.
A Woman Under the Influence, from 1974, with Gena Rowlands as a housewife whose family have her committed. After that, Faces from 1968 and Opening Night from 1977. Gloria, from 1980, is the most conventional and the easiest entry point.
By acting in other people's. He took parts in films he thought were bad, including The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary's Baby, and put the fees into his own productions. He also remortgaged his house more than once to finish a picture, and distributed A Woman Under the Influence himself when no company would take it.
Mostly not. Cassavetes wrote long scripts and rehearsed extensively, then shot in a way that let actors overlap, interrupt and lose the thread. The closing card of Shadows says the film was an improvisation, which was only partly true of the released version and has caused arguments ever since.
His wife Gena Rowlands above all, and a fixed company of friends: Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, Seymour Cassel and Val Avery. His mother Katherine Cassavetes and Rowlands's mother Lady Rowlands both appear in the films.
Of cirrhosis of the liver, in Los Angeles on 3 February 1989, aged fifty-nine. He had been ill for several years and went on working through it. He and Gena Rowlands had three children, Nick, Alexandra and Zoe, all of whom went into film.
Performed in · 1959
John Cassavetes appears briefly as a man dancing in the nightclub; his principal credit is director.
The sources below include biographies, scholarly essays, interviews, and primary materials that informed this page. They reflect both the historical record and ongoing critical conversations about John Cassavetes and their work.
Reference article cross-checked for the filmography, the awards and the death.
Reference article cross-checked for the dates, the filmography, the awards and the family.
Production and distribution history of A Woman Under the Influence, including the financing and the self-distribution.
The two versions of Shadows and the end title that began the improvisation story.
Ray Carney's edition of Cassavetes's own words, the source of every quotation here and of his account of the improvisation story.
Reference entry on the independent working method and the principal films.
Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the John Cassavetes page.
Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the John Cassavetes page.
Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the John Cassavetes page.
Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the John Cassavetes page.
These references anchor the page in the documented record and in the scholarly conversations around John Cassavetes. Every claim on this page traces back to one or more of the works listed here.
Explore more resources