Virginia Cathryn "Gena" Rowlands is an American retired actress, whose career in film, stage, and television has spanned nearly seven decades. A four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner, she is known for her collaborations with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, including A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980), both of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Opening Night (1977). She is also known for her performances in Woody Allen's Another Woman (1988), and her son Nick Cassavetes's film, The Notebook (2004). In 2021, Richard Brody of The New Yorker said, “The most important and original movie actor of the past half century-plus is Gena Rowlands.” In November 2015, Rowlands received an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of her unique screen performances.
John Nicholas Cassavetes was a Greek-American filmmaker and actor. He began as an actor in film and television before helping to pioneer modern American independent cinema as a writer and director, often producing and distributing his films with his own money. He received nominations for three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and an Emmy Award.
Queer as Folk is a serial drama television series that ran on Showtime from December 3, 2000, to August 7, 2005. The series was by Cowlip Productions, Tony Jonas Productions, Temple Street Productions, and Showtime Networks, in association with Crowe Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television. It was developed and written by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, who were the showrunners and also the executive producers along with Tony Jonas, former president of Warner Bros. Television.
Hysterical Blindness is a 2002 American television drama film directed by Mira Nair and written by Laura Cahill, based on her stage play of the same name. It stars Gena Rowlands, Uma Thurman, Juliette Lewis, and Ben Gazzara. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 16, 2002, and aired on HBO on August 21, 2002. In 2003, Uma Thurman won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Debby Miller. Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands also won Best Supporting Actor/Actress awards for their performances as Virginia Miller and Nick Piccolo at the 2003 Emmy Awards. The opening titles by Trollbäck + Company won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Design in 2003.
John Soursby Glover Jr. is an American actor, known for a range of villainous roles in films and television, including Daniel Clamp in Gremlins 2: The New Batch and Lionel Luthor in Smallville. He is also the voice of Riddler in the DC Animated Universe.
Sylvia Sidney was an American stage, screen, and film actress whose career spanned 70 years. She rose to prominence in dozens of leading roles in the 1930s. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams in 1973. She later gained attention for her role as Juno, a case worker in the afterlife, in Tim Burton's 1988 film Beetlejuice, for which she won a Saturn Award as Best Supporting Actress.
Biagio Anthony "Ben" Gazzara was an Italian American actor and director of film, stage, and television. He received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Drama Desk Award, in addition to nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and three Tony Awards.
Aidan Quinn is an American actor who made his film debut in Reckless (1984). He has starred in over 80 feature films, including Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), The Mission (1986), Stakeout (1987), Avalon (1990), Benny & Joon (1993), Legends of the Fall (1994), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Michael Collins (1996), Practical Magic (1998), Song for a Raggy Boy (2003), Wild Child (2008) and Unknown (2011).
Opening Night is a 1977 American psychological drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes, and starring Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, Joan Blondell, Paul Stewart, Zohra Lampert, and Cassavetes. Its plot follows a stage actress who, after witnessing the accidental death of one of her fans, is haunted by a recurring apparition of the deceased woman, spurring a nervous breakdown while she prepares for the premiere of a Broadway play.
The Normal Heart is a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer.
Donald Warren "D.W." Moffett is an American film, stage, and television actor. Moffett began his career in stage productions in Chicago before starring in the original New York City production of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart in 1985. He subsequently starred in a Broadway production of The Boys of Winter the same year. He made his feature film debut in Bob Rafelson's thriller Black Widow (1987) before portraying a serial killer in the thriller Lisa (1990).
James E. Freeman was an American actor and poet.
And the Band Played On is a 1993 American television film docudrama directed by Roger Spottiswoode. The teleplay by Arnold Schulman is based on the best-selling 1987 non-fiction book And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts, and is noteworthy for featuring both a vast historical scope, as well as an exceptionally sprawling cast.
David Lowell Rich was an American film director and producer. He directed nearly 100 films and TV episodes between 1950 and 1987. He was born in New York City. He began directing on a regular basis in 1950. Rich won an Emmy for outstanding direction of a special in 1978 for The Defection of Simas Kudirka. His brother was director John Rich.
Lucius David Syms-Greene, known as David Greene, was a British television and film director, and actor.
Perry Francis Lafferty was an American television producer and network television executive who produced several television programs, including the CBS programs All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Maude and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. With NBC, he produced the 1985 television movie An Early Frost, one of the first dramatic films to deal with the subject of HIV/AIDS.
Parallel Lives is a 1994 American made-for-television mystery-drama film written, directed and produced by Linda Yellen which returns some actors and similar patterns of Yellen's previous work, Chantilly Lace.
Jeffrey Lewis, also known as Jeff Lewis, is an American novelist and screenwriter. He has published eight novels, most notably the four novels of The Meritocracy Quartet. In television, as a writer-producer of Hill Street Blues, he earned 12 Emmy Award nominations, eight for writing and four as a producer, winning Emmys twice. Additionally, he received eight Writers Guild of America Award nominations and won once in 1984. He was a showrunner of Hill Street Blues during its sixth season and co-showrunner with his Yale University roommate David Milch, whom he recruited to join Hill Street Blues, during its seventh season.
Sydney Walsh is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Maureen "Mo" DeMott, a police officer who tries to "save" her gay patrol partner by making passes at him, in the television series Hooperman.
The Normal Heart is a 2014 American television drama film directed by Ryan Murphy and written by Larry Kramer, based on his 1985 play of the same name. The film stars Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons, Alfred Molina, Joe Mantello, Jonathan Groff, and Julia Roberts.
