Gena Rowlands, star of The Notebook, has Alzheimers disease – National [Video]

Gena Rowlands, an Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor most recognizable to modern audiences for her emotional performance in The Notebook, has Alzheimer’s disease.

Rowland’s son, actor and director Nick Cassavetes, confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that his 94-year-old mother is living with the progressive form of dementia. Rowlands played the older version of Rachel McAdams’ main character, Allie Hamilton, in The Notebook – a character who also develops Alzheimer’s disease.

“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, recalling his time as director of the film. “She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us.”

The movie version of The Notebook, based on Nicholas Sparks’ novel of the same name, …