The Notebook director Nick Cassavetes revealed that his mother, legendary actress Gena Rowlands, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Cassavetes, 65, broke the news while chatting with Entertainment Weekly about the 20th anniversary of the movie, which starred Rowlands, 94, as an older version of Rachel McAdams’ Allie Hamilton. The 2004 film follows the love story of Allie and Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling), as it’s being retold to an older Allie, who is battling Alzheimer’s, by an older Noah (James Garner) as he reminds her of their epic romance.
“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,” Cassavetes told the outlet in an interview published on Tuesday, June 25. “She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us.”
Rowlands’ experience playing Allie in the romance film was a sentimental one as her own mother, Lady Rowlands, also battled Alzheimer’s. “My mother was a very independent woman,” Gena told The Los Angeles Times in 2014. “She was terrific. She could have done anything really. She had that desire to get out and do things. It never left her.” (Lady died at age 95 in 1999.)
Cassavetes went on to reminisce about filming The Notebook with his mother, revealing that studio executives asked them to reshoot one of the ending scenes in which Allie realizes the man reading her own love story back to her is Noah.
“She said, ‘Let me get this straight.’ We’re reshooting because of my performance?’” Cassavetes recalls Gena telling him after being asked that she shed more tears. “We got to reshoots, and now it’s one of those things where mama’s pissed and I had asked her, ‘Can you do it, Mom?’ She goes, ‘I can do anything,’”
He continued: “I promise you, on my father’s life, this is true: Teardrops came flying out of her eyes when she saw [Garner], and she burst into tears. And I was like, OK, well, we got that … It’s the one time I was in trouble on set.”
Twenty years later, Cassavetes says he thinks The Notebook still “holds up pretty good,” noting, “It’s always a shock to hear that as much time has gone by as it has, but it makes sense. I’m just happy that it exists. It seems to have worked and I’m very proud of it.”
Gena had been in the entertainment industry for 50 years before starring in The Notebook, appearing in TV shows and movies such as Peyton Place, Tempest, Night on Earth, Something to Talk About, Unhook the Stars and Hope Floats. She scored two Best Actress in a Leading Role Oscar nominations for her roles in 1974’s A Woman Under the Influence and 1980’s Gloria.
She followed up her role in The Notebook with projects such as The Skeleton Key, Broken English, Monk, NCIS and Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks. Her most recent role was that of Dr. Cohen in the 2017 short film Unfortunate Circumstances, per her IMDb.
Gena received an honorary Oscar at the 2015 Governors Awards. “I’m very happy to see all of you here tonight in the audience,” she said at the end of her speech. “I’m happy to have been able to spend some time with you. Thank you.”
