The Notebook star Gena Rowlands has Alzheimer’s: ‘We lived it, she acted it and now it’s on us’

Rowlands portrayed the older version of Rachel McAdams’s Allie, who dies after suffering from the same disease

The Notebook star Gena Rowlands has been living with Alzheimer’s disease for the past five years, her son, director and actor Nick Cassavetes, has said.

Rowlands, 94, starred as the older version of Rachel McAdams’s lead character, Allie, in the 2004 romantic drama – based on the bestselling Nicholas Sparks novel. Allie ends up passing away at the end of the movie after developing Alzheimer’s.

“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 Entertainment Weekly.

“She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy – we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us,” The Notebook director said.

Speaking to O Magazine in a 2004 interview, Rowlands discussed how her mother’s struggle with the same disease impacted her decision to take the role.

“This last one – The Notebook was particularly hard because I play a character who has Alzheimer’s,” she said at the time. “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.”

The Notebook, which was released in 2004, starred McAdams and Ryan Gosling as Allie and Noah, two young adults from very different socioeconomic backgrounds who fall in love in 1940s South Carolina. After Noah is drafted to serve in World War II, Allie begins a romance with another man. However, when Noah returns home, it becomes clear that his romance with Allie remains.

Gena Rowlands starred as the older version of Allie in ‘The Notebook’ (Getty Images)

Rowlands, who is retired from acting, had an illustrious career in film, TV and theater. She earned two Oscar nominations for her breakout role in the 1974 drama Woman Under the Influence and 1980’s Gloria.

She was married to filmmaker and actor John Cassavetes from 1954 up until his death in 1989. Besides Nick, they share two other children: director and Broken English actor Zoe Cassavetes and director and actor Alexandra “Xan” Cassavetes. Rowlands married retired businessman Robert Forrest, in 2012.

Recalling a funny memory from working with his mother on The Notebook, Nick told EW about how, after seeing the final cut, studio executives requested Rowlands cry more at the end of the film when her character finally remembers who she is.

“She said, ‘Let me get this straight. We’re reshooting because of my performance?’” Nick recounted.

“We go 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 remembered, adding: “I promise you, on my father’s life, this is true: Teardrops came flying out of her eyes when she saw [James Garner], and she burst into tears. And I was like, okay, well, we got that... It’s the one time I was in trouble on set.”