🔗 Share this article

This Academy Award-nominated actress Diane Ladd passed away aged 89.

This actress, whose credits spanned Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, passed away at home in California’s Ojai. This announcement was announced through a message from her child, award-winning actress Laura Dern, her daughter.

Dern, who appeared with Diane Ladd in a number of films such as Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose, called her “my wonderful hero plus my precious gift as a mother”, writing that she was present as she died.

“She was the greatest grandmother, mother, daughter, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created,” she wrote. “We were fortunate to know her. She is now with the angels.”

Initial Roles and Rise to Fame

Ladd’s early career featured supporting roles on television series like Perry Mason while the 1970s saw her starring next to Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.

In the same year, the year 1974, she appeared with Ellen Burstyn in Scorsese’s praised film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, a classic. The performance landed Ladd her first Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.

1980s and Beyond

In the 1980s, she starred in the thriller the movie Black Widow as well as humorous film Christmas Vacation while also joining the sitcom Alice, a television series based on the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

During the next ten years, she earned a further supporting actress Academy Award nomination for her part in David Lynch’s the movie Wild at Heart where she played the mom of her real-life daughter Dern’s character. The next year she was awarded an additional nod for her performance in Rambling Rose, another movie that also featured her daughter.

“This movie that the late Princess Diana selected as her very favorite, and she brought me and Laura to London for a royal premiere and an event dedicated to us,” Ladd recalled of Rambling Rose. “She sat with us, taking our hands, and crying, viewing our performance.”

That decade featured performances in humorous films The Cemetery Club reuniting her with Burstyn, the movie Primary Colors, a political comedy, with John Travolta and the film by Alexander Payne the movie Citizen Ruth in which she portrayed Laura Dern’s mom again. That period also earned her Emmy nominations for roles in the series Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, Grace Under Fire and Touched by an Angel, a drama.

Collaborations with Daughter

She kept appearing with her daughter in films blending humor and drama the film Daddy and Them, Lynch’s the movie Inland Empire and White’s dark comedy series the program Enlightened. She additionally starred with Sandra Bullock in the film 28 Days, Anthony Hopkins in The World’s Fastest Indian, a film and Jennifer Lawrence in the film Joy.

Her later TV roles featured the series Ray Donovan plus Young Sheldon.

Behind the Camera

She also authored and directed the comedy the movie Mrs Munck that included her and former husband Bruce Dern. “Bruce is a great actor,” she noted. “It was a privilege to guide him in a movie. Indeed, I am the sole female in history to helm a film with her ex. I humorously say: ‘I tell women, if you seek payback, direct your ex-husband.’ Though I’m just teasing.”

Personal Connections

Ladd was also a relative of playwright Tennessee Williams, who she called “a major inspiration on my life”.

During 2018, Ladd was misdiagnosed with lung disease and informed she only had half a year left but made a full recovery after her daughter moved her to another medical facility.

“If you can take your pain and not let it back up like a sore or something, rather utilize it to discover, to clarify the journey for yourself and others, then you are triumphing,” Ladd expressed.