Home >

John Cassavetes

John Cassavetes

Birthday: 1929-12-09 | Place of Birth: New York City, New York, USA

John Nicholas Cassavetes (December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989) was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. First known as an actor on television and in film, Cassavetes also became a pioneer of American independent cinema, writing and directing movies financed in part with income from his acting work. AllMovie called him "an iconoclastic maverick," while The New Yorker suggested that he "may be the most influential American director of the last half century." As an actor, Cassavetes starred in notable Hollywood films throughout the 1950s and 1960s, including Edge of the City (1957), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and Rosemary's Baby (1968). He began his directing career with the 1959 independent feature Shadows and followed with independent productions such as Faces (1968), Husbands (1970), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Opening Night (1977), and Love Streams (1984), in addition to intermittent studio work. Cassavetes' films employed an actor-centered approach which privileged character examination over traditional Hollywood storytelling or stylized production values. His films became associated with an improvisational, cinéma vérité aesthetic. He collaborated frequently with a rotating group of friends, crew members, and actors, including his wife Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, and Seymour Cassel. For his role in The Dirty Dozen, Cassavetes received a Best Supporting Actor nomination. As a filmmaker, he was nominated for Best Original Screenplay for Faces (1968) and Best Director for A Woman Under the Influence (1974). Description from the Wikipedia article John Cassavetes, licensed under CC-BY-SA.

...

Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

2006
Operation Dirty Dozen

as    Self

1984
Love Streams

as    Robert Harmon

1982
Incubus

as    Dr. Sam Cordell

1982
Tempest

as    Phillip

1981
Whose Life Is It Anyway?

as    Dr. Michael Emerson

1979
Flesh & Blood

as    Gus Caputo

1978
The Fury

as    Ben Childress

1977
Opening Night

as    Maurice Aarons

1976
Mikey and Nicky

as    Nicky

1976
Two-Minute Warning

as    Sgt. Chris Button

1975
Capone

as    Frankie Yale

1970
Husbands

as    Gus Demetri

1970
Machine Gun McCain

as    Hank McCain

1968
Rosemary's Baby

as    Guy Woodhouse

1968
Alexander The Great

as    Karonos

1968
Bandits in Rome

as    Mario Corda

1967
Devil's Angels

as    Cody

1967
The Dirty Dozen

as    Victor Franko

1964
The Killers

as    Johnny North

1959
Johnny Staccato

as    Johnny Staccato

1958
Saddle the Wind

as    Tony Sinclair

1957
Edge of the City

as    Axel Nordmann

1957
Affair in Havana

as    Nick Douglas

1956
Crime in the Streets

as    Frankie Dane