Oscar-award-winning actress Gena Rowlands has passed away at the age of 94.
Rowlands’ demise was confirmed by her son Nick Cassavetes via Instagram on Thursday morning.
In June, Cassavetes revealed that his mum had been battling with Alzheimer’s disease — a type of dementia that affects memory, thinking, and behavior. Symptoms eventually grow severe enough to interfere with daily tasks.
Cassavetes also said his mother had dementia. He said Gena was intentional about playing the character Allie Calhoun, who struggled with Alzheimer’s in ‘The Notebook’, the 2004 film.
“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 publication. “She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us,” he said.
Rowlands was a four-time Emmy Award winner and a two-time Golden Globe winner.
She was nominated for two Academy Awards for her role in ‘A Woman Under the Influence’, the 1974 movie, and ‘Gloria’, a film released in 1980.
