- Actress Gena Rowlands died on August 14 at the age of 94.
- She had been diagnosed with dementia.
- Gena was a highly decorated star of the stage and screen, big and small, most recently known for ‘The Notebook.’
On August 14, Gena Rowlands died. She was 94 years old when she passed, and her death follows on the heels of a dementia diagnosis, though no cause of death has been formally announced. Rowlands died surrounded by family, including her husband Robert and daughter Alexandra.
An actor whose career spanned over six decades, Rowlands was a four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner who famously collaborated with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes on almost a dozen films. She is also remembered for her performance in films like Another Woman and The Notebook.
The rise of a shining star, Gena Rowlands
Virginia “Gena” Rowlands was born on June 19, 1930, in Madison, Wisconsin. After college, where she enjoyed immense popularity and admiration for her beauty, Gena headed straight to New York to study drama in earnest. Her career began in 1949 but kicked off in earnest through theatre. Gena made her Broadway debut in The Seven Year Itch, before touring nationally with the cast and crew. More esteemed Broadway work followed.
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After theatre, television work dominated much of her schedule, placing Gena in projects such as Studio One, Appointment with Adventure, Robert Montgomery Presents, and Western shows such as Bonanza, Laramie, The Virginian, Riverboat, and more.
A decorated career
The 1985 made-for-TV film An Early Frost and 1987 TV film The Betty Ford Story gave Gena national acclaim, thanks to her stunning performance as First Lady Betty Ford. For her performance, she won an Emmy Award. Emmy number two came in 1992 for Face of a Stranger, with number three coming from 2003’s Hysterical Blindness on HBO.
She also received an honorary Oscar in 2015, and her trophy case would come to include three Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes on top of that. But for Gena, the real joy of the job was all the different journeys she got to take.
“You know what is wonderful about being an actress?” she said in her acceptance speech receiving the Governors Awards in 2015. “You live many lives.”
Tragically, she would love one of those lives when her character in The Notebook suffered from Alzheimer’s, only for Gena to be diagnosed with the same condition. “I got my mom to play older Allie,” recounted her son Nick Cassavetes, who also directed the film, “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. She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us.”
Rest in peace, Gena Rowland.
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