‘The Notebook’s Gena Rowlands Diagnosed With Dementia Years After Playing An Alzheimer’s Patient In Nicholas Sparks Film

The Notebook director Nick Cassavetes has revealed that his mother, legendary Hollywood actress Gena Rowlands, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Cassavetes worked with his mother in 2004 on his film The Notebook, in which Rowlands played the Alzheimer’s-stricken Allie Calhoun, the older version of Rachel McAdams’ character. The book, based on the Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name, starred Ryan Gosling as the poor but passionate Noah, who falls in love with wealthy Allie (McAdams).

James Garner plays the older version of Noah, as he retells their love story to Rowlands’ Allie, now living with dementia in a nursing home.

At the time, Rowlands explained that her decision to take on the role was due to her own mother’s affliction with the disease.

“[It] was particularly hard because I play a character who has Alzheimer’s,” she said, per Oprah.com. “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. It was a tough but wonderful movie.”

Now 93, Rowlands has been living with Alzheimer’s for five years, Cassavetes said. “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. She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us,” he told Entertainment Weekly.

Rowlands’ first onscreen appearance was in 1954. In addition to The Notebook, Rowlands starred in 1974’s A Woman Under The Influence and 1980’s Gloria, both of which were directed by her husband, John Cassavetes and both earned her Academy Award nominations.

She received an honorary Oscar in 2015. Rowlands retired from acting in 2014 after she starred in Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.