Gena Rowlands, Screen Legend and Star of The Notebook, Dies at 94 After Dementia Diagnosis (2024)

Gena Rowlands, screen icon best known for A Woman Under the Influence and The Notebook, has died. She was 94.

Rowlands died surrounded by her family - including her husband Robert and daughter Alexandra - at her Indian Welles, Calif. home on Wednesday, Aug. 14, reports TMZ, adding that no cause of death was immediately available. Her son Nick Cassavetes' agent's office also confirmed the news to PEOPLE.

In June 2024, Nick told Entertainment Weekly that his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease five years ago.

Rowlands was born in June 1930 in Cambria, Wisconsin. She began acting in the 1950s and made her Broadway debut in The Seven Year Itch.

In 1955, Rowlands began to guest star in TV shows such as Studio One, Laramie, Johnny Staccato opposite her husband John Cassavetes, Riverboat, The Lloyd Bridges Show, Bonanza, The Virginian and Breaking Point.

In 1958, she made her film debut in The High Cost of Loving.

It was her marriage to Cassavetes which led to some of her best-known roles. The two collaborated together on 10 films such as A Child Is Waiting, Faces, Machine Gun McCain, Minnie and Moskowitz, and Tempest.

The two made for an unusual Hollywood couple in that they financed many of their own films, often with money they earned by acting in more commercial projects.

Two of their films, 1974’s A Woman Under the Influence and 1980’s Gloria resulted in Rowlands’ Oscar nominations for Best Actress.

In 1984, Rowlands told PEOPLE, "John and I probably disagree on just about everything in the world."

Describing their marriage as "volatile," the actress added, "But that’s what marriage is all about. If you think a marriage isn’t going to be like that, you’ve got trouble."

Rowlands went on to star in Woody Allen’s 1988 film Another Woman in which she played a middle-aged professor who goes on a journey of self-discovery after she overhears a therapy session involving another woman (Mia Farrow).

She gained acclaim for her 1985 made-for-TV film An Early Frost and 1987’s TV film The Betty Ford Story in which she played First Lady Betty Ford. She won an Emmy Award for her performance.

In 1992, she won her second Emmy Award for Face of a Stranger. Her third Emmy win came in 2003’s HBO film Hysterical Blindness.

The actress also worked alongside her children, including Nick Cassavetes’ 2004 film The Notebook. In 2007, she acted opposite Parker Posey in the independent film directed by her daughter Zoe Cassavetes, Broken English.

In 2015, she was awarded an honorary Oscar, and accepted the award at the Governors Awards that year, thanking her late husband for his contribution to her many successes.

“You know what is wonderful about being an actress?” she said in her acceptance speech. “You live many lives.”

Rowlands was married to John from 1954, until his death on February 3, 1989, from complications of cirrhosis at 59. The two met while at the American Academy at Carnegie Hall where they were both students.

Rowland admitted in a 2016 interview with T Magazine that she found Cassavetes to be “really good looking” while they were both in school. But she didn’t allow herself to be swayed by his good looks.

“The one thing I never wanted to do was to fall in love or get married or have children,” she said. “I wanted to act.”

Cassavetes introduced himself after a student performance she was in. Rowlands revealed it would take the actor-director three years to convince her to be with him.

When asked how he managed to woo her, Rowlands told the magazine, "Life has its little surprises."

The couple had three children together: Nick, Zoe and Alexandra. Rowlands remarried in 2012 to retired businessman Robert Forrest.

Rowlands revealed in a 2016 interview with Variety that her favorite film with her late husband was A Woman Under the Influence.

“You were dealing with a woman who was a little wacky to begin with and she was obsessively in love with her husband,” Rowlands said. “She got into such real trouble with her own psyche that she had a major nervous breakdown.”

“I found it so touching,” she continued.

Rowlands also revealed she was surprised by the success of The Notebook, in which she played an older version of Rachel McAdams’ character, Allie.

“I didn’t think it would have that kind of impact,” she said. “I think it was such a big hit because it was about the realization that love can last your whole life. You don’t see it depicted that way a lot.”

“In most films, you don’t get to see a story like that go from the beginning to the end with the possibility that love can be perhaps eternal.”

When Nick revealed that Rowlands had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, he told Entertainment Weekly it was "crazy" that in The Notebook his mother had played a character with the same 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 hadAlzheimer's," he explained. "She's in full dementia. And it's so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it's on us."

Rowlands is survived by her husband, Robert, her three children and five grandchildren.