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Legendary actress Gena Rowlands has Alzheimer’s disease. ©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection
Legendary actress Gena Rowlands has Alzheimer’s disease.
Her son, director Nick Cassavetes, shared the heartbreaking news with Entertainment Weekly while looking back on his and Rowlands’ film “The Notebook,” in which her character, Allie, develops dementia.
“I got my mom to play older Allie, and we spent a lot of time talking about Alzheimer’s and wanting to be authentic with it, and now, for the last five years, she’s had Alzheimer’s,” said Cassavetes, whose grandmother actress Lady Rowlands also suffered from the degenerative disease.
“She’s in full dementia, and it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us.”
Gena, 94, discussed in 2004 how her mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s influenced her decision to play Allie in the film adapted from Nicholas Sparks’ novel.
“I went through that with my mother, and if Nick hadn’t directed the film, I don’t think I would have gone for it — it’s just too hard,” Gena shared with O magazine.
“It was a tough but wonderful movie.”
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