‘The Notebook’ Star Gena Rowlands Dies

Gena Rowlands, the Oscar-nominated actor best known for the string of films she collaborated on with her husband, the director John Cassavetes, has died aged 94.

Her son, Nick Cassavetes, made the announcement on Wednesday, August 14.

In 2024 Nick revealed that she had Alzheimer’s.

Gena was a successful actor before and after her films with Cassavetes. However, it is the string of films she made with her actor-turned-director husband that came to define her career.

Rowlands played a series of groundbreaking roles, including in Faces (1968), Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Opening Night (1977), Gloria (1980) and Love Streams (1984).

Gena earned two Oscar nods for 1974’s “A Woman Under the Influence,” in which she played a wife and mother cracking under the burden of domestic harmony, and “Gloria” in 1980, about a woman who helps a young boy escape the mob.

In addition to the Oscar nominations, Rowlands earned three Primetime Emmy Awards, one Daytime Emmy and two Golden Globes. She was awarded an honorary Academy Award in 2015 in recognition of her work and legacy in Hollywood.

A new generation was introduced to Rowlands in her son’s blockbuster “The Notebook,” in which she played a woman whose memory is ravaged, looking back on a romance for the ages.

She also appeared in her son Nick Cassavetes’ “Unhook the Stars” in 1996.

In her later years, Rowlands made several appearances in films and TV, including in “The Skeleton Key” and the detective series “Monk.” Her last appearance in a movie was in 2014, playing a retiree who befriends her gay dance instructor in “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.”