Remembering pioneering film star Gena Rowlands

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Bianculli. Today6 we're starting off by remembering Phil Donahue, the pioneering TV talk show host who died Sunday at age 88. We'll listen back to a conversation between him and Terry Gross from 1985, and we'll begin with this appreciation.

"The Phil Donahue Show" began in 1967 as a local series in Dayton, Ohio. It was syndicated nationally in 1969 and relocated to Chicago in 1974, with the show's title shortened to just "Donahue." That was because by then, the talk show host and his unusual format were equally familiar to and embraced by national TV audiences. Ten years later, another Chicago talk show began outperforming him in the ratings, a show hosted by a young woman named Oprah Winfrey whose approach to television owed much to her Chicago predecessor. Donahue moved his program to New York, where he continued his passionate brand of talk show TV until 1996.

Before Phil Donahue, most talk shows were forums for celebrities to plug their latest projects. Donahue did some of that, too, and he wasn't above pandering for ratings. In an effort to appeal to his largely female daytime audience, he did several shows featuring strip club male dancers from Chippendales. But Donahue, like his talk show audience, seemed as interested in listening as in talking, and his conversations were unprecedentedly inclusive and wide-ranging. He took on topics few others would go near. In 1982, while still broadcasting from Chicago, he addressed a very serious topic that still, at that time, was unfamiliar to many people.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DONAHUE")

PHIL DONAHUE: A significant and serious disease has struck the gay community. And let's see how much sense we can make out of this at the outset. First of all, you don't have to be gay to get this. But most of those who are afflicted are members of the gay community. And an alarming percentage of those who are afflicted live in the New York City area, although, again, our guests want you to know that it is not exclusive to New York City. And as with so many things in medicine, researchers and lots of people who are working overtime trying to figure this thing out have - there's a lot of mystery attending it, and we really don't know all the answers. But we do have a good deal of tragedy that has already hit.

Larry Kramer is here. Mr. Kramer is a screenwriter, producer of the film "Women In Love" and lots of other things. And he has - did you - have you lost 17 friends?

LARRY KRAMER: That's right, Phil.

DONAHUE: Seventeen of your friends have died.

KRAMER: Seventeen very close friends, all men under 50 years old, all men at the peak of their usefulness to society, of their creative ability. This is over a two-year period. My 17th friend died two weeks ago.

BIANCULLI: Phil Donahue kept returning to that issue and famously built programs around Ryan White, the young hemophiliac teenager who developed AIDS after a blood transfusion. When Ryan White died in 1990 at age 18, Elton John was one of his pallbearers. Phil Donahue was another.

Even on shows that were much lighter in tone, Phil Donahue would involve his audience - not just the studio audience, where he famously would stroll into the crowd with his microphone to let them ask questions of his guests, but also viewers at home, who could and did call in. It was an early example of the town hall talk show concept, and Donahue kept things moving briskly.

Here he is in 1986 from New York, devoting that day's show to Joan Rivers. She had just broken with Johnny Carson and "The Tonight Show" to agree to star in her own talk show for the fledgling Fox network. Her show wouldn't premiere until the following year, but her move already was seen as controversial. In this clip from Donahue, we hear an audience member ask a question then a caller. Both elicit delightful responses.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DONAHUE")

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: What do you do for relaxation?

JOAN RIVERS: What? What?

DONAHUE: What do you do to relax, Joanie?

RIVERS: Read. My husband and I get into bed and, unfortunately, read.

(LAUGHTER)

RIVERS: Read.

DONAHUE: Are you there? Hi. Go ahead.

CHER: Hi. How are you?

DONAHUE: I'm good.

CHER: I just want to tell you that I'm really proud of you, Joan. You're a fabulous friend. And...

DONAHUE: You recognize this voice?

CHER: You've been really supportive of me when I needed you. I can't tell you - I'm so happy that I'm going to be able to not have to go on the Carson show to be with you.

RIVERS: Cher, you old b****.

(APPLAUSE)

RIVERS: Oh.

CHER: And I also want to tell you this. You know...

RIVERS: You...

CHER: Of all the people...

RIVERS: You talk about...

CHER: Let me tell you this. Of all the people...

RIVERS: ...An incredible woman.

CHER: ...I know what it's like to be on the hot seat, you know, when you do something that people aren't thrilled with. And it took a lot of guts. And, you know, this is America. Everybody deserves to make their mark, to get their break and then to take it.

RIVERS: I love you so much.

(APPLAUSE)

BIANCULLI: But Donahue didn't rely only on his studio audience and call-in viewers to ask questions and engage with his guests. He was a very good interviewer. He wasn't above probing and challenging his guests. And essentially, he changed the tone and direction of the TV talk show. Like Dick Cavett, whose program went national the same year, Donahue presided over a talk show that was smart and presumed its audience to be intelligent as well. Like Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres - all of whom came after him - Donahue's show was, in a word, civil.

The opposite side of the spectrum was popular, too, personified by the antagonistic and exploitive bottom-feeding shows by Jerry Springer. But Phil Donahue changed TV for the better, not for the worse. Terry Gross spoke to Phil Donahue in 1985, and she asked him why he involved the audience during his program.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

DONAHUE: Well, first of all, I'd like you to believe that I was brilliant enough to sit down and decide to do all these things. Our show, like life itself, evolved. I replaced a variety show in Dayton, Ohio, in 1967 and, in so doing, inherited an audience that had already received tickets for a program that includes song, dance, piano. And also, you got to wave when the camera turned on you. Rather than dismiss the audience, why, we invited them to come in and watch as I interviewed Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

I honestly don't remember how long it took, but after several shows, it was clear that what was happening in the - during the commercials was, in many ways, more interesting and instructive than what's happening between the host and the guest. And on one day, I jumped out of the chair and went into the audience. And it was really - that moment is what - we didn't know it then - what subsequently made the program - what shall we say? - different and, I think, absorbing enough to hold a viewer for an hour.

TERRY GROSS: There are other conventions that you violated, too, like turning the show over to issues instead of just doing fashion shows and dieting.

DONAHUE: Right. That, too, was a matter of survival. We - since our show came from Dayton, Ohio, we did not have the stars that we were accustomed to seeing on talk shows available to us. So - and we had five days a week to fill. And what we discovered very early on was that if the issue was right, you could have a show that was far more interesting with a guest who did not have celebrity stature. And it was 1967. The war was raging, protests. Our cities were burning. Martin Luther King had been assassinated, as had Bobby Kennedy. And suddenly, we found that we were surrounded by some very volatile ideas and conflicts about which the audience cared very deeply. It was our first real exposure to the fact that out there, during the daytime, were a lot of people who wanted more than just games and soaps - women who were concerned about more than just covered dishes and needlepoint; women who were, in effect, saying, please don't patronize us. Just give us the information. We'll make our own decision. And we were off to the races.

GROSS: Were you ever at all disappointed that you were going to be on in the morning, knowing that the morning audience is always called the housewife audience?

DONAHUE: Well, that stereotype existed. The prejudice continued, and, I think, continues today, although I don't think it's as widespread - and nor is it as powerful as it once was.

GROSS: Well, what does that mean in broadcasting terms, when they say it's the housewives who listen? What does that mean to broadcasters or broadcasting executives?

DONAHUE: I think, first of all, it means a woman with hair curlers, perhaps sitting under a hairdryer and reading a movie magazine. It also means a very important marketing target, a person who buys everything that Proctor & Gamble produces, and it also means, sadly, a person who doesn't have much of an interest in politics or much of a vision beyond the front lawn. I really don't think that that overstates the very damaging stereotype that existed within the broadcasting industry at the time, and we were very pleased. One of the things about which we're most proud is that the program demonstrated that those were - that the audience during the day wanted a program like ours for a long time, and we were just fortunate enough to come along and give it to them.

GROSS: Were you advised not to do that, though? Were you told, look, Phil, wise up? You know, they don't want to hear about issues. You got to do celebrities and...

DONAHUE: Absolutely.

GROSS: ...Cosmetics.

DONAHUE: That advice continued for quite a while. As you may know, we did not burn the town down immediately. We did well in Dayton, Ohio, but the thought of syndicating our program was really an absurdity. We had no desk, no couch, no band, no Phyllis Diller, no funny sidekick. We had really none of the conventions. Our program was also very visually dull. We had no spinning wheel. We were surrounded by programs wherein contestants were dressed like chicken salad sandwiches, or a man said, come on down, and you had all kinds of excitement and the possibility of winning a car - or, in those days, maybe $5,000. Against this kind of energy, it was a - it took, at the very least, some hutzpah. It made us very nervous. I have to say that I was nervous myself.

Well, when we finally syndicated in '69, we got into three markets and then six and then four and then eight and then five. We started and stopped and started again, and on those occasions when we would get flat, we had a lot of pressure to throw pies, as you might say, to juice the show up, to make it more interesting. There was also a lot of resentment about - a lot of resistance to the notion that the attention span of the viewer would be long enough to hold one guest for an hour. As you know, the book about television or the audience today is make sure you do it in six minutes and then bring somebody - bring on the talking Pekingese, and we disproved them.

BIANCULLI: Phil Donahue, speaking to Terry Gross in 1985 - more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 1985 interview with Phil Donahue, who hosted a popular and influential TV talk show for decades. He died Sunday at age 88.

GROSS: You hadn't really considered much about feminism in 1967, when you started doing the show. Looking back now, when you look at your early days of hosting and compare it to your way of doing it now, do you think that you were doing anything then that you'd now think of as being patronizing or chauvinistic?

DONAHUE: I'm sure that I did. I was raised in a - pardon my voice. I've got a crick, and it'll go away in a moment. I was raised in a world where men led, and women served. All of the people in my childhood who had any authority at all were males, including the priests and the - who said Mass, while I served - the adult nun who taught me a woman was not permitted on the altar, while I, a child, was permitted to serve Mass.

And I think that I discovered probably too late that these experiences leave a legacy which do not depart from the soul very easily, and to this day, I think I'm struggling with those early experiences. I just had the good fortune of having a professional life that allowed me to meet people like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan and others, who said, among other things, that children in this culture get too much mother and not enough father. When they said that, they made me very nervous indeed because it was certainly true in my case. And I think, to this day, I have a tendency to perhaps - I think patronizing habits die a very slow death, and I know that I'm capable of that behavior now and then. I'm not as bad as I used to be.

GROSS: You're sometimes called TV's leading feminist or morning TV's only feminist or things like that. And I wonder if you have any ideas about why women on TV don't seem to be able to identify themselves as feminist. Sometimes, I think that for a woman to identify herself as a feminist who's in broadcasting, it's seen as something that might compromise her professionalism.

DONAHUE: I suppose you could say I've never thought about it. Your question provokes the possibility that it is easier for a male to be a feminist than a woman. You get - at least you get the possibility that you'll be - that your daughter will be exposed to ideas that you want her - that remind her that it's important that she be an independent person, forsake the "Cinderella" fairy tale, be capable of accommodating her own needs on her own, in the event that she makes a bad choice in terms of a relationship or a marriage. And at the same time, you get whatever comfort might come from the fact that a male is making these points, since all the years of most of us in my age group have featured males in positions of authority. Interesting possibility. I don't know.

I think the point should be made that the fact that I am considered to be this leading male feminist is itself indicting. I embraced the politics of the feminist movement a long time ago for selfish reasons. First of all, I have a daughter. But I certainly can't claim to have the academic credentials or the informed historical perspective of feminist politics that a lot of other people who don't happen to have the good fortune of having a talk show might have.

So it's really, I think, a sign of this enormous struggle that after all this work that these women, many of whom were out there early getting whistled at and having their sex preference questioned and who were really being derisively treated by a largely male press, look up 20 years after this wave has already been underway and discover that their No. 1 male - or that one of their leading male supporters is Phil Donahue.

I'm not mock humble at all when I say that I didn't wake up one morning and decide to be a feminist. It's been a very difficult struggle. It's very hard to walk away from all the free services that women have provided me all my life. My mother never missed a meal, and I went right from her to a wife who never missed a meal and also dutifully raised five children while I went out and did what you did in the '50s. I got promoted, and I was a workaholic. And now I realize that in that process, I was not a party to shared parenthood. And I think that the losers in that case were my children.

GROSS: You've written in your autobiography a couple of years ago about how during your first marriage, you know, you were much more conventional in your attitude towards gender. And I sometimes think about how your first wife must feel now hearing all this talk about Phil Donahue, Mr. Feminist, when she was married to, you know, pre-feminist Phil Donahue and saw...

DONAHUE: Right.

GROSS: ...The earlier side of you.

DONAHUE: I think she probably feels - I think it's a painful thing for her. I made it clear who I was and who I wasn't in my autobiography. It'd be better if someone else said this, but I think it's a reasonably honest review of who I was and wasn't in the early days of our marriage, in the early years of our marriage. What has happened, I think, is that media has, I think, in a kind of short circuit way, presented me as the single father who this, who that. Single fathers get a lot more attention than single mothers. Single mothers are supposed to be wonderful. Single fathers are little boys lost that you just kind of want to love. And isn't he struggling to do a nice job? What a wonderful guy he must be.

I really feel pretty good about my single fatherhood, having presided over the household while my sons were going through high school. But I do not deserve the award of Father of the Year. I was scared. I really didn't - my father was a fellow who worked 9 to 9 selling furniture. So while he loved me and was a very civil, gentle, insightful man, he was, because of his workaholism, an absentee father in many ways. So I really didn't have a whole - I was a very, very uneasy single parent. And while I did struggle through it, and I'm very grateful for the relationship that I enjoy with my children today, I wasn't what you would - I wasn't the father that my billing might suggest today.

GROSS: There have been local stations that have blacked out some of your programs, either portions of it or they've played a rerun instead of carrying...

DONAHUE: Right.

GROSS: ...The regular show. And I guess some of the subjects have been showing an abortion, showing a birth. Do you approve of them doing it? Do you think that that's - well, obviously, you don't. But do you think it's an example of, you know, democracy in action or the opposite?

DONAHUE: I do. No, I do. I think this - I think the syndicated method of distribution of program material is the most democratic. We paid our dues for this. Not being on a network means that one vice president can't while he's shaving on a Tuesday morning decide that we're finished. Peoria can cancel our show, but I'm still on the air in Indianapolis. At the same time, individual stations can make a decision about what they may or may not want to broadcast. While it is true we have a contract to provide a program to them, they have no obligation to broadcast it. They are responsible for what goes off the top of their tower, and they retain the last, final word on whether this or that program airs. I think that's as democratic as you get in our business.

On those occasions when someone cancels our show, I do call them. I mean, I think - I make it clear, look, you're the customer, and if you and I are going to have a fight here, you're going to win. It's your station. But please let me appeal this. We wouldn't have sent you this program if we thought it wasn't of broadcast quality. And then I attempt to engage them in a dialogue about why they did it and why we did it. I think it serves to let them know that we're not cavalier about people canceling the program, and the next time they think about it, at least they'll know that we're watching them.

BIANCULLI: Phil Donahue speaking to Terry Gross in 1985. The pioneering TV talk show host died Sunday. He was 88 years old. After a break, we remember actress Gena Rowlands, who died last week at age 94. And Justin Chang reviews the new film "Close Your Eyes." I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JASON MORAN'S "BLUE BLOCKS")

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University. Now we're going to remember Gena Rowlands, the actress best known for collaborating with her husband, director John Cassavetes. Their independent films, made in the 1970s and '80s, were often raw and improvised. Rowlands died last week at the age of 94. She played a housewife having a nervous breakdown in "A Woman Under The Influence," a prostitute in "Faces" and a former gangster's moll in "Gloria." She was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for two of those dramatic performances.

But her film debut was in the 1958 comedy "The High Cost Of Loving," playing the wife of Jose Ferrer. Here's a scene in which the two are eating breakfast. He's just read something out loud from the newspaper. Now it's her turn to read from the paper. She's trying to let him know she's pregnant, but he's not getting it.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE HIGH COST OF LOVING")

GENA ROWLANDS: (As Ginny Fry) Page one, my section. Mr. and Mrs. Jim Fry, after nine years of marriage, proudly announce that a new baby appears to be on the way.

JOSE FERRER: (As Jim Fry) Oh, imagine that.

ROWLANDS: (As Ginny Fry) Imagine what?

FERRER: (As Jim Fry) What you just read.

ROWLANDS: (As Ginny Fry) What did I just read?

FERRER: (As Jim Fry) About those people getting married.

ROWLANDS: (As Ginny Fry) I didn't say that. I said after nine years of marriage, a baby. A B-A-B-Y baby.

BIANCULLI: Here's another clip. Gena Rowlands is in the 1974 film "A Woman Under The Influence." She plays a suburban housewife with three kids, and she's having an emotional breakdown. She's become hysterical, and her husband, played by Peter Falk, slaps and then hugs her.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE")

PETER FALK: (As Nick Longhetti) You're going to be committed. Go to the hospital until you get better.

ROWLANDS: (As Mabel Longhetti) I'm not sore at you. I mean, you hit me. You never did that before. I feel like if that's what you feel bad about, I always understood you, and you always understood me. And it was always just how it was, and that's it. Till death do us part, Nick. You said it. Remember? He said, do you, Mabel Mortensen, take this man? I do. I do, Nick. I do. Remember? I said it's going to work because I'm already pregnant.

FALK: (As Nick Longhetti) Don't let that mind run away on you now.

ROWLANDS: (As Mabel Longhetti) Do you remember how you laughed?

FALK: (As Nick Longhetti) Don't make me...

ROWLANDS: (As Mabel Longhetti) You laughed.

FALK: (As Nick Longhetti) Don't.

ROWLANDS: (As Mabel Longhetti) Do you remember it? And he was mad as a big toad.

FALK: (As Nick Longhetti) Don't do that.

ROWLANDS: (As Mabel Longhetti) Hey. Don't be sad. I know you love me.

BIANCULLI: In the 1980 film "Gloria," Rowlands plays a woman who had been connected to the Mafia. She's asked by neighbors, who know that they're about to be executed by the Mob, to take care of their 6-year-old son, but the Mob wants the boy because his parents have given him the book they kept on Mafia business. Gloria doesn't have maternal feelings. In this scene, she's on the street and is trying to ditch the kid when a car full of mobsters pulls up. She's carrying a gun in her purse.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GLORIA")

JOHN FINNEGAN: (As Frank) Gloria.

ROWLANDS: (As Gloria Swenson) Yes?

FINNEGAN: (As Frank) You know, we're not interested in you. All we want is the book and the kid. Do you understand?

ROWLANDS: (As Gloria Swenson) Sure.

FINNEGAN: (As Frank) Gloria, why don't you take a walk? We'll take care of that kid. You got that book, kid? Come here.

ROWLANDS: (As Gloria Swenson) Hey, Frank. What are you going to do? Shoot a 6-year-old Puerto Rican kid on the street? You don't know nothing. He don't even speak English.

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNS FIRING)

BIANCULLI: That isn't the last time in the film she opens fire on the mobsters and gets away with it, by the way. Terry talked with Gena Rowlands in 1996.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: "Gloria" was, in a way, a really out-of-character film for you. It's an action film, in a way, and, you know, you're pretty handy with a gun in the film.

ROWLANDS: (Laughter).

GROSS: Not your typical role. Did you enjoy that change of pace?

ROWLANDS: I loved it. It was such a fantasy. I mean, here I am, and I'm going to take on the whole Mafia and beat them. It's just sort of an incredible power trip.

GROSS: While being very motherly at the same time.

(LAUGHTER)

ROWLANDS: Yes, while being very motherly at that time, but it was - I remember it was so strange, carrying that gun at first, and then after a while, 'cause I always carried it in my purse so I could shoot through the purse if I needed to - Gloria, I'm speaking of, not me - and then afterwards, I was carrying the purse, because, you know, the prop man comes and takes it from you so there won't be an accident, or anything, at every occasion, and then, all of a sudden, my purse would seem very light. And I thought, my, you get used to things very quickly. It was - the whole thing was - and it was a tough picture physically, because I was running around in those four-inch-heeled sandals and carrying a child over my shoulder, and running through Harlem in, you know, 98 degrees heat and 1,000 humidity or something, so that it was a picture you got into shape very quickly.

GROSS: "A Woman Under The Influence," directed by your late husband, John Cassavetes - you played a woman married to a character played by Peter Falk. And you're having, like, a nervous breakdown, and you just, like, unravel more and more as the movie goes on. Had you seen somebody going through that before taking on the role, somebody who you could think about while doing the movie?

ROWLANDS: Not one person. You know, I wasn't thinking of one person. A part is like reading a detective story. You don't write it. You don't start it in the middle. You interpret it, and very often, you find things that they're doing - the character that you're doing - that puzzles you, and you wonder how and why, and so you take as much of - because I believe that all of us have every quality, all of us. It's a matter of degree, and acting is a matter of increasing the degree or decreasing.

But it's always there, and you can always find it inside of you and think about things that you've seen and heard and people you've known. And all you need is just a little. It can be like a little piece of rice. But once you have the feeling, then you can enlarge it and take it where you wish to.

GROSS: You and your late husband, John Cassavetes, were making independent films before, I think, there was even a name for it. I mean...

ROWLANDS: Yes.

GROSS: You were really pioneers of that in the movie industry. Why did you start? Why did you start finding your own little niche away from the larger industry?

ROWLANDS: Well, of course, as you say, you don't think of yourself as a pioneer, or even you don't think of yourself in any particular way. It's just that you want to express a different kind of story, a different kind of - we felt that there's so much more that could be said on film and that films could be much more personal to the audience, that you could do pictures that were actually something that people would relate to because it was in their own lives, that - because all of them, really, essentially are about love and the loss of love or how to survive love or how to find love or how to keep love or, you know, what you do with it, which is really the eternal problem for all of us. And we thought it could be shown in a more natural setting, a more accessible way rather than just, say, an action film or, you know, some...

GROSS: A glamorous romance.

ROWLANDS: ...Escape - yeah, escape film. But it's not that we wanted them to stop doing that kind of film. We just felt that there was a lot of room for a lot of kinds of film.

GROSS: Could you describe a little bit about what the guidelines for improvisation were within the films that you made with John Cassavetes? How much improvisation was there? What were the parameters for that?

ROWLANDS: The first film that he made, "Shadows," was entirely improvised. I wasn't in that. And so then he did develop a reputation from that as doing everything improvisation. But actually, after that, he always had a script and, you know, not just a thrown-together script, a real script. But then when we would have - if you'd have a problem with the scene or - John's theory was that if he got a bunch of good actors together and there was a problem, then it was the writer's problem. So then we would stop and talk about it, rehearse, improvise and, you know, work about it as much as we needed to. And then when we thought we had it, he'd go in and sit down and write the scene from the improvisation the way he wanted it. And that's how we did most of them, not all of them. There were lots of improvisations all the way through to the last films that we made. But mainly, they were very scripted.

GROSS: And so even the parts that were improvised - by the time you did the final take, it had been scripted based on the improvisation.

ROWLANDS: Mostly. I was thinking of one that is just the opposite of that. In our last picture, "Love Streams," I played a woman who loved too much - loved her husband too much, loved her children too much. I did everything too much. She just drove everybody crazy with her excessiveness. It says in the script that she calls the husband home from a business meeting and the child home from school because she knows that they are not getting enough fun out of life. So they come home thinking something important is happening. And then there's just this one little sentence, really. And it said, she - they come home and sit down. She makes them laugh. And I said, what does that mean, John? And how does she make them laugh? He said, don't worry about it. He said, I've got something great planned. You're going to love it. I said, well, do you have any hints or anything? He said, no. He said, I don't want to ruin it for you. He said, just wait. And I said, this is making me hysterical. He said, no, I'm telling you. He said, I don't want to even give it away. So we got to the day that we were going to shoot, and he said, stay in a dressing room. I don't want you to see the preparations. And now I just - I really was truly hysterical. And finally, he came, and he said, OK. He said, now come on out. And we were shooting in the backyard of this beautiful home. And they was Seymour Cassell and Risa Blewitt, who are playing my husband and child, and they're both sitting there. And they had a long picnic table. And on top of the picnic table, there are about a hundred of those - you know, those crazy little games that you see, you know, those clattering, chattering false teeth and eyes that pop out on springs and ketchup bottles that look like they're getting stuff all over you - all that terrible - those joke store games. And John said, there. What do you think? I said, what do you mean what do I think? What am I supposed to do here? He said, make them laugh. I said, with these? I said, which ones? He said, all of them. He said, we got a minute to shoot it. He said, and use every one. Make them laugh, and then go jump off the diving board into the pool. So I said, well, shall we rehearse? He said, no, no, no, no. He said, I don't want to ruin the spontaneity of it. He said, OK, roll it. And so I just wildly started, you know, with the eyes and the ketchup. And the thing - and, of course, he had already told them not to laugh because in their characters, they were not amused that they'd been brought home, you know? And so now I got wilder and wilder, trying, you know, just anything. Then finally, the minute had gone by, and I went and jumped off the diving board. Then, of course, I realized why I was jumping off the diving board - 'cause he had planned that they weren't going to laugh. Now, that kind of improvisation was quite rare because there was no rehearsal. There was no talking. There was nothing. It was just - you just went for it. And, you know, he was right. It was more fun to do that scene. It's when - I look back on it with a lot of happiness.

BIANCULLI: Gena Rowlands speaking with Terry Gross in 1996 - more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 1996 interview with actress Gena Rowlands. She was best known for her independent film collaborations with her director husband, John Cassavetes. She went on to play the title role in the TV movie "The Betty Ford Story" and starred opposite James Garner in the film "The Notebook." Rowlands received an honorary Oscar in 2015. She died last week at the age of 94.

GROSS: Your father, I believe, was a state senator when you were growing up. Do I have that right?

ROWLANDS: Yes.

GROSS: You know...

ROWLANDS: In Wisconsin.

GROSS: In Wisconsin - and this was U.S. Senate. Oh, state senator.

ROWLANDS: No, no.

GROSS: Right - in a state Senate.

ROWLANDS: A state Senate...

GROSS: OK.

ROWLANDS: ...Progressive Party, which...

GROSS: Oh.

ROWLANDS: ...Doesn't exist anymore.

GROSS: Oh.

ROWLANDS: It was a La Follette party.

GROSS: Did you ever have to be the model daughter while your father was in politics? Or is that also too far in the past to remember?

ROWLANDS: Well, I was a - I was not a hard child because I was a sick child. I was an invalid when I was little. And so, you know, I wasn't much of a handful. I was lying around, looking pale and reading books and things. So that - I don't think that it was the same as if they had to trot me out, you know, with my little velveteen collar on or anything. I wasn't very involved in it.

GROSS: What were you sick with?

ROWLANDS: I don't - some weird kidney disease. And then that went into double pneumonia. And then that went into something. I think - what I really think is I - my immune system probably was just not very developed and - because when I got to be a teenager, I've never been sick again. And - I don't know - it was just one thing after another, but they were all very kind of serious things - asthma and all of those things. But then they just all kind of magically went away. So I think something just kicked in.

GROSS: Were you very unhappy during the period that you were sick?

ROWLANDS: No, I wasn't. I would like to have gone to school more in that sense, but I always was very happy reading. And everybody - you know, when you have a sickly kid, everybody's awfully nice to you. And they probably would have been anyway. But my mother would - in order to make me eat anything, she would go to all kind of extremes. I remember one - (laughter) I remember one time, I wouldn't eat carrots. I wouldn't eat anything yellow. So she cut a carrot into the shape of a goldfish...

GROSS: (Laughter).

ROWLANDS: ...And with a long tail. And then she put it in a goldfish bowl with a - with water in it. And she came into where I was sick, and she said, I have an uncontrollable urge. She said, I can't stand it. I have - I've got to eat this goldfish. I've got to do it. I'm going to - I said, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do it. She said, I've got to, unless you'll eat this carrot. And so I said, oh, all right (laughter), you know? But they would go to the most extraordinary kind of creative lengths...

GROSS: (Laughter).

ROWLANDS: ...To do these things for me. I really had a pretty happy childhood.

GROSS: Oh, that sounds wonderful.

ROWLANDS: It was.

GROSS: Did you write for comic books before acting?

ROWLANDS: Yes, when I went to New York, and I worked. And then I - then I was out of a job. And so I got a job. Mr. Gleason - Lev Gleason - gave me a job writing "Crime Does Not Pay" comics.

(LAUGHTER)

ROWLANDS: I wrote for a long time, too, about a year or so.

GROSS: These were, like, action comics with a moral message.

ROWLANDS: Yes. I always, of course, gave them an uplifting ending...

GROSS: (Laughter).

ROWLANDS: ...A sudden conversion.

GROSS: And when did you get seriously interested in acting?

ROWLANDS: When I was about 14. I was living in Virginia, and I won a scholarship to a local repertory theater in Washington, D.C. - Arlington's, you know, just outside of D.C. And so I - it was a wonderful, wonderful repertory, too. I mean, they tried the harder stuff. Talk about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread. We were doing Joan of Arc and "L'Aiglon" and "Richard III." And I was Richard, too. So, I mean, you...

GROSS: (Laughter).

ROWLANDS: They had an open mind and a marvelous, marvelous teacher. And I was the young one. They - most of the guys were in their 20s. And it was serious. We all took it very seriously and worked very hard for several years there.

GROSS: Gena Rowlands, thank you so much for talking with us.

ROWLANDS: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

BIANCULLI: Gena Rowlands, recorded in 1996. She died last week at the age of 94. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new film "Close Your Eyes" by the Spanish director who made the classic film "The Spirit Of The Beehive." This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ART BLAKEY AND THE JAZZ MESSENGERS' "JIMERICK")

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Our film critic Justin Chang says "Close Your Eyes" is one of the best movies he's seen this year. It's the first feature in more than three decades from Spanish director Victor Erice, best known for his 1973 classic "The Spirit Of The Beehive." "Close Your Eyes" follows a retired filmmaker trying to solve a mystery surrounding an unfinished production from many years ago. Here is Justin's review.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: The Spanish director Victor Erice is one of our most revered yet least prolific European filmmakers. Over the past 50 years or so, he's directed just four features, starting with his masterful debut, "The Spirit Of The Beehive." That movie was a haunting family drama set in 1940, during the early days of the Franco dictatorship. It was also a passionate ode to cinema from a filmmaker who's always loved the movies, even when the movies haven't loved him back. He had a rough time with his 1983 film "El Sur," a beautiful yet truncated work that was released in its unfinished form.

In the years since, Erice has directed a number of projects, including the 1992 documentary "The Quince Tree Sun" and several shorts. But he has struggled to get another fiction feature off the ground until now. The arrival of Erice's new movie, "Close Your Eyes," would be welcome news even if it weren't one of the best things I've seen this year. Manolo Solo plays a long-retired director named Miguel, who quit the biz in 1990 after one of his films shut down production.

The circumstances were mysterious. His star, a handsome actor named Julio Arenas, vanished without explanation and was presumed dead. Now it's 2012, and a Madrid-based TV journalist is investigating Julio's disappearance. After he's interviewed, Miguel stays in Madrid and makes inquiries of his own. While "Close Your Eyes" unfolds at a leisurely pace over nearly three hours, it has the pull of a well-crafted detective story. Miguel reaches out to old friends and colleagues, like his longtime editor, Max, a hardcore cinephile who still has the never-screened footage from that halted production. Miguel also gets back in touch with Julio's daughter, who knew little about her father even before he went missing. She's played exquisitely by Ana Torrent, who was just a young girl when she starred in "The Spirit Of The Beehive" decades ago. It's a glorious full-circle moment.

Miguel's investigation doesn't yield any immediate answers, and he returns wistfully to his home on the Spanish coast. It's here that the action briefly pauses and settles into a simply magical interlude. One night, while hanging out under the stars, Miguel picks up a guitar and performs a duet with his friend, Toni.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CLOSE YOUR EYES")

MANOLO SOLO: (As Miguel Garay, singing) Purple light in the canyon. That's where I long to be with my three good companions - just my rifle, pony and me.

DANI TELLEZ: (As Toni, singing) Going to hang...

SOLO: (As Miguel Garay, singing) Going to hang...

TELLEZ: (As Toni, singing) ...My sombrero...

SOLO: (As Miguel Garay, singing) ...My sombrero...

TELLEZ: (As Toni, singing) ...On the limb...

SOLO: (As Miguel Garay, singing) ...On the limb...

TELLEZ: (As Toni, singing) ...Of a tree. Coming home...

SOLO: (As Miguel Garay, singing) Coming home...

TELLEZ: (As Toni, singing) ...Sweetheart darling.

SOLO: (As Miguel Garay, singing) ...Sweetheart darling.

DANI TELLEZ AND MANOLO SOLO: (As Toni and Miguel Garay, singing) Just my rifle, pony and me.

SOLO: (As Miguel Garay, singing) Whippoorwill...

CHANG: You'll recognize that song if you've seen Howard Hawks' 1959 Western "Rio Bravo," which is one of my own favorite movies. Maybe it's one of Erice's, too. Like "Rio Bravo," "Close Your Eyes" turns out to be a story about community, about friendships forged under unlikely circumstances. Miguel's mission to solve the mystery of Julio's disappearance becomes a group effort, as old and new friends come together to help him.

You don't have to know Victor Erice's work to get swept up in "Close Your Eyes." But those who do know his work will find the new film an almost unbearably moving experience. Erice is in many ways telling his own story. Miguel could be his stand-in, just as Miguel's unfinished film feels like a metacommentary on some of Erice's own abandoned projects. Miguel and his old editor Max reminisce about earlier, better times for the film industry and grouse about the changes wrought by digital technology.

But despite his character's pessimism, Erice continues to show a hard-won faith in the movies. He knows that they can move us in ways that no other art form can. At one point, Erice ushers all his characters into a dilapidated, old movie theater, which is where "Close Your Eyes" becomes not just an engaging film, but a quietly transcendent one. I don't want to say too much about what happens, but it's worth discovering for yourself in a movie theater of your own.

BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed "Close Your Eyes," which opens tomorrow in select theaters. On Monday's show, movie icons. We begin a series of interviews from our archives with great actors. We'll start with Michael Kaine, whose career includes the '60s film "Alfie" and the Dark Knight Batman films, and Robert Duvall will tell us about playing the consigliere in "The Godfather" and speaking the most famous line in "Apocalypse Now" - hope you can join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF DON STIERNBERG, RUSTY HOLLOWAY AND JEFF JENKINS' "TOPSY")

BIANCULLI: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Diana Martinez. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.

(SOUNDBITE OF DON STIERNBERG, RUSTY HOLLOWAY AND JEFF JENKINS' "TOPSY")

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.