'The Notebook' Actor Gena Rowlands Fights Alzheimer's

Veteran screen actor Gena Rowlands, whose decades-long career includes two Oscar nominations and an honorary Academy Award, has quietly been battling Alzheimer's disease.

The diagnosis was confirmed by her son Nick Cassavetes, who helmed the 2004 film "The Notebook" starring Rowlands as a character with the disease. Speaking with Entertainment Tonight on the 20th anniversary of his film, Cassavetes said his mother, 94, was in "full dementia."

In "The Notebook," Rowlands portrayed an elder version of the leading character Allie, whose husband Noah (James Garner) helps care for her as she struggles with dementia.

The role was difficult for Rowlands, whose mother also suffered from Alzheimer's, as she previously revealed in a 2004 interview with O Magazine.

"This last one – 'The Notebook,' based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks – was particularly hard because I play a character who has Alzheimer's," Rowlands said at the time. "I went through that with my mother, and if Nick hadn't directed the film, I don't think I would have gone for it – it's just too hard. It was a tough but wonderful movie."

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Cassavetes said he and his mother "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."

Commenting on the film he made with his mother, Cassavetes said he thinks it "holds up pretty good" after 20 years.

"It's always a shock to hear that as much time has gone by as it has, but it makes sense. I'm just happy that it exists," he said, adding, "It seems to have worked and I'm very proud of it."

Rowlands earned Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in "A Woman Under the Influence" (1974) and "Gloria" (1980). She also won three Emmy Awards for her roles in "The Betty Ford Story" (1987), "Face of a Stranger" (1992), and "Virginia" (2003), and was honored with a lifetime achievement Oscar in 2015 for her outstanding contributions to cinema, according to The Guardian.

Rowlands retired from acting in 2015.