Gena Rowlands, celebrated actor from "A Woman Under the Influence" and "The Notebook," has Alzheimer's, son says

Gena Rowlands, a celebrated actor and honorary Academy Award recipient, is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, her son, the filmmaker Nick Cassavetes, has revealed.

Cassavetes, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly published Tuesday, said Rowlands has had Alzheimer's for five years. In the 2004 film "The Notebook," Cassavetes directed his mother, who played the older version of the character played by Rachel McAdams, as a woman with 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," Cassavetes said. "She's in full dementia. And it's so crazy —we lived it, she acted it, and now it's on us."