Hollywood star's heartbreaking health update
Gena Rowlands's son has shared his mother's heartbreaking health battle, that is reminiscent of one of her most iconic movie character's similar health issue.
The 94-year-old Golden Globe winner who portrayed an older version of Rachel McAdam’s character, Allie, in the 2004 film The Notebook, has been battling Alzheimer’s disease for the past five years.
While discussing the film's 20 year anniversary, Nick Cassavetes, the director of the movie and Rowlands’ son, revealed his mother’s diagnosis.
“I got my mum 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 of Rowlands’ character, who also had dementia.
“She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us.”
Back in 2004, Rowlands — whose mother, actress Lady Rowlands, also suffered from the disease — explained why playing Allie was “particularly hard.”
“This last one — The Notebook, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks — was particularly hard because I play a character who has Alzheimer’s,” she told O magazine.
“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.”
Image credits: New Line Cinema/Demmie Todd/Warner Bros/Spring Creek/Kobal/Shutterstock Editorial