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Too short, that's the only thing I can say. He was not yet 60 when he died. Nevertheless he accomplish a great deal in his day - certainly a life to remember. He tried to understand love for all of his life. He married Gena Rowlands in 1954 and stayed with her personally and artistically till the day he died - 35 years. He maybe did not understand love and marriage (or so he said) but, God, how he tried.

Let me add one last thing: "Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction"
--Saint Exupery





I decided to spare you from the usual "Once upon a time ....". I have organized the biography as a series of focal points. For Movies/TV./Theatre details, see Movie Section, which contain many information not listed here.
For those thing that just don't fit any specific sections, see the Trivia or Preferences pages.
It's also interesting to note how life and art of John Cassavetes often can be exchangeable and that the same people you see mentioned here are also listed in Movie Section. I made a special page devoted to those people and friends that helped him thru the years.

NB: before the publication of the book by Raymond Carney, Cassavetes on Cassavetes, writing a biography was an impossible task. There were no clear facts, dates, stats and names. There was no clarity even on the movies' releases. Now things have been straightened a bit. The best thing you can do is to buy the book because, doing so, you'll have a 360 degrees picture of John Cassavetes the man and the artist and you'll discover things that were probably known only by parents and close friends. Even if you consider yourself a Cassavetes' expert, you'll be surprised by the enormous amount of information never printed before. A definitive tome. I have organized this section more or less like the book, editing and summarizing the most important facts (the pics are not always linked to the movie).


" I have such admiration for people who can recount their lives in autobiography, because the connections are so complicated. I would never be able to straighten it out "
--John Cassavetes

VITAL STATS

Name: John Nicholas Cassavetes
Date of Birth: 9 December 1929
Date of Death: 3 February 1989
Place of Birth: New York City, New York, USA
place of Death: Los Angeles, California, USA
Father: Nicholas John Cassavetes (1893 - )
Mother: Kathrine Demetri (ca 1908 - )
Brother: Nicholas John Cassavetes (1927 - )
Wife: Virginia Cathryn Rowlands (married 19 March 1954)
Children: Nicholas David Rowlands Cassavetes (1959), Alexandra (1965), Zoë (1969)
Hair: black & thick
Eyes: dark brown
Height: 5' 7''


Beginnings: 1929-1956
"Home is the place where a man can let down the guard on his weakness"
--J.Cassavetes


  • Nicholas John Cassavetes (NJC), father of John, arrives in America with his brother Arthur in 1908 from Larissa, Greece. They set in Providence, Rhode Island.
  • In 1911 NJC enters Harvard on a partial scholarship. He concentrates in Chemistry. To support himself he has various jobs after school from 6 p.m. to midnight.
  • In 1915, after leaving school, NJC serves the US Army as an interpreter, Honorary Secretary and Director of the Pan-Epirotic Union in America.
  • On 24 April 1926 NJC marries Katherine Demetri (KD), fifteen years his junior. They have two sons: John Nicholas (JC) on 9 December 1929 and Nicholas John (NC) on 21 December 1927. NJC is quiet, serious, thoughtful, very artistic, creative and original. KD is extroverted, animated, status-conscious, strong-willed, opinioned and outspoken. She is fluent in Greek, Italian, English and Yiddish. She also has a great sense of humor and a great love for life.
  • It is the Depression and the family is very poor.
  • In the early '30s, the family returns to Greece for six years. JC is two. When they return, JC doesn't know a word of English, only Greek.
  • The family moves a lot, in the '50s and the '60s in Riverside Drive, Sutton Place, on East Side of Manhattan. KD runs a boutique in Upper East Side, NJC runs the Olympic Travel Agency at 203 West 42nd Street. In the early '70s they move to California to stay close to JC.
  • JC enters his teen and became known as a delinquent. The family moves to suburbs: Sand Point, Port Washington, Long Island. An upper-middle-class town. Oppressive and conformist. JC is a white fly.
  • High-School time. He is known as "Cassy", "always ready with a wisecrack" and voted "Class wit". He chips a front teeth. He develops his trademarked "smirk".
  • JC graduates in June 1947. He follows his brother to Mohawk College. When Mohawk closes down he moves to Champlain. He fails at Champlain at the end of the first semester.
  • He doesn't know what to do with his life. Hitch-hike down Route One. Holiday in Florida. Back from Florida and decision to enrolls at AADA (American Academy of Dramatic Arts). The main reason (following a friend suggestion) are the "girls".
  • JC enters AADA on 8 February 1949. He brings two pieces: Philip Barry's The Youngest and The Merchant of Venice. He is described as "dark", "short", "Latin type", "sensitive temperament", "fine intelligent boy". The school is located at Carnegie Hall on 57th St. and Seventh Avenue. Two years program. He star the courses with the April class. He continues in the senior class of September, then graduating in mid-march 1950. Charge are $500 a year. From the second semester he has to provide the money by himself.
  • He meets Fred Draper and Burt Lane.
  • He moves to a little apartment on 96th St., near riverside Drive and shares the flat with 10 people.
  • After the school he starts the round-making. Daily pilgrimage to casting directors, producers, agents, directors and writers to ask for a job. This life goes on for about 4 years.
  • He chains himself to a radiator to get a part in CBS TV program You are There in 1953.
  • During this period he does a lot of bit parts on stage: at Chapel Playhouse in Guilford, Connecticut, in Benn levy's Clutterbuck, in 2 Blind Mice, in Rhode Island regional Theater.
  • To avoid being drafted he joins Army Reserves with roommate Bill Stafford (who'll appear in many Cassavetes' works).
  • He keeps establishing his "crazy" reputation, shouting, jumping and beating his head on a locker to get the attention of younger AADA students (including an embarrassed Gena Rowlands). Some think that maybe his problems with alcohol might have started here.
  • Henry's Hathaway's 14 Hours in 1951 (his scene cut from final print) and Gregory Ratoff's Taxi in summer 1952 (hot-dog vendor)
  • After Taxi, he follows Ratoff as a "gofer" in a TV series called Cradle of Stars. They become good friends. He goes to Broadway as Assistant Stage Manager with Ratoff's Court Theater production The Fifth Season in January 1953. Just to make a little money - 85$/week
  • During a performance, he meet Sam Shaw (news and film photographer) backstage. He is clowning around, declaring poetry and classic, doing back flips. Sam Shaw comes directly from a session of "actors' freedom" at the Actor Studio. He's impressed and adopts the boy.
  • He introduces JC to the artistic and cinematic "cream" of New York (and later will produce many of his movies and will do most of the photography, layout, design and writing for press packs, ads and campaigns). Thanks to him JC discovers poetry, painting and jazz.
  • Shaw introduces JC to Robert Rossen during pre-production of Alexander the Great. JC doesn't get the part, but the blacklisted director and the young actor become friends and Rossen will greatly help him during Shadows.
  • JC has an agent, finally, Robert Lang. They'll stay together for less than one year.
  • Minor TV role on Kraft with Richard Green in late 1953. He plays a man in an iron mask. He asks his friends to watch and in particular a young woman he's trying to court, Gena Rowlands (GR). As you can imagine the relationship will be not exactly smooth as velvet... (and we'll come back to this subject sooner or later)
  • New agent, William McCaffrey and finally a good opportunity: the role of a bullfighter in Omnibus' episode Paso Doble in January 1954. The performance is a hit. Wide media coverage (superbly orchestrated by JC, his agent and Sam Shaw) to get his name in print. Even Hedda Hopper becomes a huge supporter.
  • Thanks to Hopper, JC gets a chance to test for Michael Curtiz's The Egyptian. First taste of Hollywood. Edmund Purdon has the part.
  • In march 1954, JC quits his job at Court Theater.
  • On 19 March 1954, JC marries Gena Rowlands at the Little Church Around the Corner.
  • JC acts in more than 26 TV shows in the rest of 1954, 23 in 1955 and 12 in 1956 (working with writers like Reginald Rose, Robert Allen Arthur, Tad Moselle, Paddy Chayefsky, David Shaw, J.P. Miller, Horton Foote). On 21 June 1955 JC and GR appear in Time for Love, on NBC's Armstrong Circle Theater. They do it again on 9 October on Goodyear Television Playhouse. GR is noted by Josh Logan who is going to cast her in Paddy Chayefsky's The Middle of the Night.
  • New agent, Marty Baum, who spots him at the Newborne Agency. Baum recommends JC for The Night Holds Terror. He will be his agent up into the 1970s.
  • JC salary rises from $500 to $25000 in 1957. JC and GR sign a long-term contract with MGM. They move from the apartment in 36E 36th St. to another at 162W 54th St. to a penthouse at 40E 75th St in 1956 (you can see it in many scenes from Shadows).
  • Crime in the Streets in 1955, Edge of the City and Affair in Havana in 1956, Saddle the Wind and Virgin Island in 1957. These film provide life-long friends, like Don Siegel, Sal Mineo and Sidney Poitier, but were unsatisfactory from an artistic point (except for Edge of the City).
  • In 1956 Rowlands starts acting in The Middle of the Night, JC remains at home or hangs out in bar. He is not happy with the course of his life and after a tour in Connecticut to play Tennessee Williams' Twenty-Seven Wagons, he decides it's time to do something different and meaningful with his life.