Just like her character in 'The Notebook', Gena Rowlands has Alzheimer's

Reality can be stranger than fiction, and sometimes reality is just as harsh as fiction. In the case of Gena Rowlands, she is now living the same life as one of her most remembered characters: Allie in 'The Notebook'.

Photo: New Line Cinema

At 94 years old, the actress suffers from Alzheimer's, the same illness that her character, the older version of Rachel McAdams, had in the film.

Her son, the director of 'The Notebook' Nick Cassavetes, opened up about his mother's situation. He talked about the similarities with her character and what it means to have portrayed a very difficult family situation 20 years ago.

"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," the director told Entertainment Weekly.

"And now, for the last five years, she's had Alzheimer's. She's in full dementia. And it's so crazy - we lived it, she acted it, and now it's on us," he adds.

If the similarities with 'The Notebook' are harsh, the differences are no less so. In the film, Allie's great love, Noah, is played by Ryan Gosling as a young man and James Garner as an old man. The actor James Garner passed away in July 2014.

In the case of Gena Rowlands, the great love of her life died much earlier, back in February 1989, due to liver cirrhosis. Although the actress would remarry Robert Forrest in 2012, her marriage to John Cassavetes was real Hollywood history.

The couple met at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York (AADA) and married in 1954 before they were famous.

In fact, their love story has a lot in common with 'The Notebook' - and it's no coincidence. John Cassavetes was the son of Greek immigrants and a womanizer, while Gena Rowlands was a young woman from a wealthy family with the aura of a star even before she was one.

The love between them was instantaneous and continued until death separated them. They had time to work together on 10 films, including some legendary ones like 'Faces' (1968), 'A Woman Under the Influence' (1974), and 'Gloria' (1980).

Their family and cinematographic legacy go hand in hand, since the three children they had (Nick, Alexander, and Zoe) have also dedicated themselves to the world of cinema.

As Gena Rowlands confirmed in 'O Magazine' in 2004, "if Nick hadn't directed the film, I don't think I would have gone for it - it's just too hard." So we must give thanks to her son for giving us one of the great Hollywood romances of the 21st century, based on one of the great Hollywood couples of the 20th century.

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