Gena Rowlands, the actress with a seven-decade career that has garnered two Oscar nominations and an honorary Academy Award, is suffering from Alzheimer’s diseas according to her son Nick Cassavetes.
The actress has a few notable roles in her career, and her role as an aged Allison Calhoun in ‘The Notebook’ suffering from Alzheimer’s disease remains one of her best. Here’s everything her son has disclosed about the veteran actor’e health.
Gena Rowlands Is Suffering From Alzheimer’s Disease
Director Nick Cassavetes stated that his mother, Gena Rowlands who is currently 94 years old, is in “full dementia” in an interview with Entertainment Weekly on the 20th anniversary of his movie ‘The Notebook’, in which Rowlands portrayed a character suffering from Alzheimer. In the movie, Rowlands played a memorable elder version of Rachel McAdams‘ character named Allie, whose husband Noah (James Garner) takes care of her 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,” Casssavetes said, “She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us.”
Rowlands’ mother Lady Rowlands too suffered from the disease and the actress had opened up on how hard it was to portray the role after going through her mother’s sickness. “This last one — The Notebook, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks — was particularly hard because I play a character who has Alzheimer’s,” Gena had said. “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.”
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Gena Rowlands In ‘The Notebook’
Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams played a young couple who fell in love but are held apart for their disparity when it comes to wealth and class in the 2004 classic by Cassavetes. Years later, an old man (James Garner) tells Rowlands character their story. Rowlands is initially shown as a dementia patient who lives in a nursing facility. Later on, it comes to light that Garner and Rowlands portray the married, more mature versions of Gosling and McAdams’, giving the film a happy ending.
The film has gone down in history as one of the best book to film adaptations and also has a cult following. Even now, it is considered to be one of the best romantic films made in the industry, and the lasting impact it had on the audience truly reflects that.
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