Gena Rowlands, the Golden Globe winner who portrayed an older version of Rachel McAdam’s character, Allie, in the 2004 film “The Notebook,” has died at 94.
Rowlands died Wednesday afternoon at her home in Indian Wells, California, representatives for her son, filmmaker Nick Cassavetes, said, according to the Associated Press.
Her official cause of death has not been released.
Cassavetes, the director of the famed 2004 romantic comedy, previously revealed his mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis when discussing the “Notebooks” 20th anniversary.
“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 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.”
Rowlands was also a four-time Emmy winner and a two-time Best Actress nominee at the Academy Awards. She was nominated for her roles in “A Woman Under the Influence” and “Gloria.”
She also had two Golden Globes among many other achievements.
On TV, Rowlands earned her Primetime Emmys for “The Betty Ford Story,” “Face of a Stranger” and “Hysterical Blindness,” as well as a Daytime Emmy for “The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie.”
