American actress Gena Rowlands, who is known for her iconic roles in The Notebook and Another Woman, has died at the age of 94 years old.
No official cause of death has been revealed, but she was reportedly suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Rowlands, who was nominated for an Oscar for 1974’s A Woman Under the Influence and 1980’s Gloria, died at her home in Indian Wells, California. Both movies were iconic collaborations with her late husband John Cassavetes.
After winning four Emmys, two Golden Globes, and her Oscar nomination, Rowlands retired from the entertainment industry in 2015.
Her Emmys were for The Betty Ford Story, Face of a Stranger, Hysterical Blindness, and The Incredible Mrs Ritchie.
Gena had spent more than 60 years in the entertainment industry, making her Broadway debut in the early 1950s. In 1956 she starred in the Broadway play Middle of the Night.
In 2015, she was given an honorary Academy Award for her long acting career.
“Working this long? I didn’t even think I’d be living this long,” she recently told Variety.
The Notebook was directed in 2004 by her son Nick Cassavetes, who recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly about how his mother played a character suffering from dementia.
“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,” he said.
“She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us.”
She also starred in films Faces, Opening Night, Unhook the Stars, Yellow and Broken English, Hope Floats, Tempest, The Brink’s Job, Tony Rome and The Neon Bible.
