Diane Ladd, three-time Oscar nominee and mom to Laura Dern, dies at 89
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- Diane Ladd died Monday at her home in Ojai, daughter Laura Dern announced.
- Ladd was a versatile and enduring talent whose screen career included more than 200 movie and TV credits from the 1960s to the 2020s.
Diane Ladd, the triple Oscar-nominated actor who received acclaim for her work in films including “Rambling Rose,” “Wild at Heart” and “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” has died. She was 89.
Oscar winner Laura Dern, Ladd’s daughter with Oscar-nominated actor Bruce Dern, announced her mother’s death in a statement shared Monday. “My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother, Diane Ladd, passed with me beside her this morning, at her home in Ojai,” Dern wrote. A cause of death was not revealed.
“She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created,” Dern, 58, said in her statement. “We were blessed to have her.”
Mississippi native Ladd was a versatile and enduring talent whose screen career included more than 200 movie and TV credits from the 1960s to the 2020s and multiple Emmy and Oscar nominations. Famously, she appeared in director Martin Scorsese and writer Robert Getchell’s 1974 feature “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” as snarky roadside-diner waitress Florence Jean “Flo” Castleberry.
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She elevated her side character into so much more, earning a supporting actress Oscar nomination for the role and inspiring iterations of the witty waitress in TV adaptations “Alice” and its spinoff, “Flo,” starring Polly Holliday. She appeared in the former as Isabelle “Belle” Dupree.
Ladd often thrived in supporting roles, earning Oscar nominations in that category for her work in “Wild at Heart” and “Rambling Rose,” in 1991 and 1992, respectively. Though she was no stranger to stealing the spotlight, she also had a knack for sharing it with daughter Laura Dern in several films.
Ladd and her daughter, who was born in 1967, co-starred in “Rambling Rose,” “Citizen Ruth” and late filmmaker David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” and “Inland Empire.” The mother-daughter duo also appeared in HBO’s “Enlightened.”
Bruce Dern, 89 and the first of Ladd’s three husbands, said in a statement that she was a “tremendous” actor but had been a “a bit of a ‘hidden treasure’” until she starred alongside her daughter in Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” as her mother. “It felt like the world then really understood her brilliance,” the elder Dern said.
“She was a great value as a decades-long board member of SAG, giving a real actress’ point of view,” he continued. “She lived a good life. She saw everything the way it was. She was a great teammate to her fellow actors. She was funny, clever, gracious.
“But most importantly to me, she was a wonderful mother to our incredible wunderkind daughter. And for that I will be forever grateful to her.”
Laura Dern has openly embraced her family’s Hollywood lineage. At the Palm Springs International Film Festival in 2020, the “Blue Velvet” star told attendees that her father and Ladd — who were married from 1960 to 1969 — conceived her in the nearby mountain town of Idyllwild during production of the 1966 Roger Corman biker movie “The Wild Angels,” Ladd’s breakout film.
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Throughout her career, Ladd collaborated with notable filmmakers, among them Roman Polanski, on “Chinatown”; Rob Reiner, for “Ghosts of Mississippi”; and David O. Russell, on “Joy.” Her film credits include “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” and “Cemetery Club,” among others. She directed Bruce Dern in her directorial debut, “Mrs. Munck,” in 1995.
Ladd enjoyed a lengthy film career, but her television career was far more expansive, with roles in shows as varied as “Gunsmoke,” “Alice,” “ER,” “Ray Donovan” and “Young Sheldon.” In 1980, she earned a Golden Globe Award for her work in “Alice,” and from 1993 to 1997, she earned three guest actress Primetime Emmy nominations for “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” “Grace Under Fire” and “Touched by an Angel.”
Rose Diane Lanier was born Nov. 29, 1935, to a veterinarian father and housewife mother. She began performing as a child and sang with French Quarter band Dixie Hi De Ho Jo while attending a finishing school in New Orleans, according to her website. After turning down a scholarship to study law at Louisiana State University, she pursued entertainment, performing with a troupe created by John Carradine, father of “Kill Bill” star David Carradine.
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Ladd went on to perform at New York’s Copacabana and took roles in various stage productions, including “Noisy Passengers” with Robert De Niro and “Woman Speak” with Jane Fonda, according to her website.
SAG-AFTRA on Monday honored Ladd for her decades of service to the performers union, including her turn on the SAG National Board. She joined SAG and AFTRA in 1956, well before the two guilds merged in 2012. The actor received the Ralph Morgan Award for her service in 2025.
“I had the privilege of serving with her on our National Board, and I’m grateful for the time, insight and dedication she brought to every discussion and initiative,” SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin said in a statement. “Her legacy endures through her extraordinary body of work and through the countless ways she strengthened our union and the industry for generations to come.”
After her marriage to Bruce Dern ended, Ladd married William A. Shea Jr. They divorced in 1977. She got married for a third time in 1999 to Robert Hunter, who died earlier this year. In addition to “Little Women” and “Big Little Lies” star Dern, Ladd and Bruce Dern were parents to a second daughter, Diane Elizabeth, who was born in 1961 but died at 18 months in a drowning incident.
Of her mother, Laura Dern said Monday: “She is flying with her angels now.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
