Diane Ladd, the acclaimed actress known for her roles in films like Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Wild at Heart, and the mother of actress Laura Dern, has died, per people.com She was 89.
Ladd, a three-time Oscar and three-time Emmy nominee, passed away peacefully at her home in Ojai, California, with her daughter by her side.
“My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother, Diane Ladd, passed with me beside her this morning,” Dern, 58, said in a statement obtained on Monday, November 3. “She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created. We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.”
Born on November 29, 1935, in Laurel, Miss., Ladd began her career by shortening her last name from Ladner. Her long list of movie and TV credits includes the 1974 Martin Scorsese classic Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, which earned her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film later inspired the popular CBS sitcom Alice, for which Ladd won a Golden Globe in 1981.
Ladd was celebrated for her intense, nuanced performances and her long history of collaborating with Hollywood legends. She received two more Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominations: for David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990) and Rambling Rose (1991), both of which she starred in alongside her daughter, Laura Dern. The mother-daughter duo would work together again in Citizen Ruth, Inland Empire and the HBO series Enlightened.
Ladd and Laura Dern, the daughter from her first marriage to actor Bruce Dern, published the joint memoir, Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding) in 2023. The book was inspired by a series of honest conversations that followed Ladd’s 2018 diagnosis with a life-threatening lung disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
The memoir provided an intimate look at their relationship, including the tragedy of Ladd’s first daughter, Diane, who died in a swimming pool accident at 18 months old—an event Ladd credited with leading to her 1969 divorce from Bruce Dern.
Ladd was married three times. Her husband, Robert Charles Hunter, whom she married in 1999, died just months before her in July of this year at age 77.
Ladd’s final film credits include Joy (2015) and Gigi & Nate (2022). She also had recurring roles on TV series like Kingdom Hospital and Chesapeake Shores.
•Featured image: Diane Ladd in 1992/Matthew Ford/Shutterstock
