Emmy and Golden Globe Winning Actress from Wisconsin Dies at 94

A legendary actress from Wisconsin, who was revealed to have been suffering from Alzheimer's for the past five years back in June, has died at the age of 94.

Gena Rowlands was a titan of her time. A four-time Emmy award winner, two-time Golden Globes, and two-time Oscar nominee, Rowlands is probably best known for playing the elderly Allie in The Notebook. She passed away at her home in Indian Wells, CA surrounded by family. Ironically, her most famous role had her playing a woman who had also succumbed to dementia.

Rowlands retired from Hollywood in 2015 following her decorated, multi-decade. Her Oscar nominations included A Wonder Under the Influence and Gloria, both collaborations with her late first-husband, the legendary filmmaker/actor John Cassavetes.

It was their son, Nick Cassavetes, director of The Notebook, who revealed that his mother had been suffering during that film's 20th anniversary celebration earlier this summer. His comments on his mother's diagnosis five years prior, and its ironic connection to the film in which he directed her, was heartbreaking to say the least:

I got my mom to play older Allie, 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. - Nick Cassavetes, per Entertainment Weekly

Long before she was the Gena Rowlands, whose work we know and celebrate to this day, she was just a little girl from Cambria, WI.

Cambria is a tiny town located in the Madison, WI metropolitan area. Rowlands was born in 1930 to a housewife mother and a father, Edwin Myrwyn Rowlands, who worked as a banker and state legislator. He was a member of the Wisconsin Progressive Party, and even worked for the United States Department of Agriculture in Milwaukee later in his career. Before Hollywood, Rowlands was a simple Midwest girl.

This connection stuck out to me when I first heard of her diagnosis, along with everyone else. Tracing her origins story gave me great insight into who she was as a person, and should be integral in our memory of her. Just a little Midwestern girl with enormous dreams.

Alzheimer's is one of the cruelest diseases a human can endure. It robs you of your memories and your agency, and while eventually, the person suffering is none the wiser to their ailments, the toll it takes on a family is insurmountably challenging and devastating. The prolonged suffering is almost unbearable.

Gena Rowlands is survived by her husband, Robert Forrest, and children Nick, Alexandra, and Zoe Cassavetes. For further reading, visit Deadline's website.