The Academy Award-nominated actor the celebrated Diane Ladd left us at the age of 89.
This actress, with filmography included Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, left this world in her residence at her Ojai, California home. The news was shared through a message by her offspring, Academy Award-winning star Laura Dern.
Dern, who performed alongside her mom in various films including Wild at Heart, referred to her as “my wonderful hero as well as my precious gift being my mom”, noting that she was by her side as she died.
“She was the greatest grandmother, mother, daughter, performer, creative along with compassionate soul that felt like a dream come true,” she wrote. “We were lucky to have her. She is now with the angels.”
Ladd’s early career featured minor parts in TV shows such as Gunsmoke while that decade had her appearing next to Jack Nicholson in the classic Chinatown.
In the same year, 1974, she shared the screen alongside Ellen Burstyn in the Martin Scorsese praised film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, a classic. Her acting brought Ladd an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actress.
In the 1980s, she starred in the dramatic film the movie Black Widow and comedy sequel National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation while also joining the sitcom Alice, a comedy program derived from the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
During the next ten years, she received a further supporting actress nomination for her performance in Lynch’s Wild at Heart where she played the mom of her actual daughter Dern’s character. The following year she received an additional nod for her performance in Rambling Rose, another movie that also featured her daughter.
“This was the picture which Princess Diana chose as her absolutely favorite, and she brought me and Laura to England for a royal premiere and a party for us,” Ladd shared about the film Rambling Rose. “She positioned herself between us, taking our hands, and crying, viewing our performance.”
That decade featured performances in the comedy Cemetery Club, a film reuniting her with Ellen Burstyn, Primary Colors, a political story, a satirical film, with John Travolta and Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth in which she portrayed the mother of Dern another time. Those years also brought her TV award nominations for performances in Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, the show Grace Under Fire and Touched by an Angel, a drama.
She continued to star alongside her daughter in comedy drama Daddy and Them, David Lynch’s the movie Inland Empire and the series by Mike White comedy-drama series Enlightened. She was also seen next to Sandra Bullock, a star in 28 Days, a movie, Sir Anthony Hopkins in that movie and Jennifer Lawrence in Joy, a biographical drama.
Her more recent television parts included the series Ray Donovan and Young Sheldon.
She additionally penned and oversaw the humorous movie Mrs Munck, a film which starred her and former husband Bruce Dern, an actor. “Bruce is a talented star,” she noted. “It was a privilege to guide him in a film. Actually, I’m the only woman ever to helm a film with her ex. I make a joke: ‘I advise females, if you seek payback, direct your ex-husband.’ However, I’m joking.”
Ladd was also the third cousin of playwright Tennessee Williams, who she called “a major inspiration on my life”.
Back in 2018, she received an incorrect diagnosis with a pulmonary condition and advised she had just six months to live but she regained full health after her daughter shifted her to a new hospital.
“When you use your pain and not let it back up similar to a wound, instead apply it to discover, to make the path clearer for you and those around, then you are triumphing,” Ladd expressed.
