Acclaimed Actress Diane Ladd, Known For Her Performance in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Passes Away at Age 89.
This award-nominated actor Diane Ladd, a Hollywood veteran has died 89 years old.
The actress, with filmography spanned Chinatown, left this world in her residence in California’s Ojai. The news was announced in a statement by her daughter, Academy Award-winning star Laura Dern.
Laura Dern, who starred with her mother in several movies like Rambling Rose, referred to her as “my incredible hero and my precious gift as a mother”, writing that she was by her side when she passed.
“She was the most wonderful daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that seemed almost dreamlike,” she wrote. “We were blessed to have her. She is now with the angels.”
Beginnings and Rise to Fame
The start of her career included small roles on television series like Gunsmoke while the 1970s saw her starring with actor Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.
During that year, the year 1974, she shared the screen with actress Ellen Burstyn in Scorsese’s praised film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, a classic. Her role landed Ladd an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.
Later Decades
During the eighties, she starred in the dramatic film Black Widow plus humorous film National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation while also joining the sitcom Alice, a television series inspired by the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
In the following decade, she earned a further Oscar nomination for supporting actress nomination for her role in Lynch’s Wild at Heart, a cult classic where she played the mother of her real-life daughter Laura Dern’s role. A year later she received a further nomination for her acting in the film Rambling Rose which also starred her daughter.
“This was the picture which Princess Diana selected as her very favorite, and she flew us to England for a premiere and a celebration for us,” Ladd recalled about the film Rambling Rose. “And she sat between us, taking our hands, and crying, viewing our performance.”
That decade also saw roles in comedy Cemetery Club bringing her back with Burstyn, the movie Primary Colors, a comedy about politics, with John Travolta and the film by Alexander Payne Citizen Ruth, a dark comedy where she played the mother of Dern another time. That period also saw her score nominations for Emmy Awards for roles on Dr Quinn, Grace Under Fire, a sitcom and Touched by an Angel.
Partnerships with Her Daughter
She continued to star alongside her daughter in films blending humor and drama Daddy and Them, a movie, the David Lynch project Inland Empire and White’s comedy-drama series the program Enlightened. She also appeared alongside Sandra Bullock, a star in 28 Days, a movie, Anthony Hopkins, a legend in that movie and with Jennifer Lawrence in Joy.
Her more recent television parts included Ray Donovan, a drama and Young Sheldon.
Filmmaking Ventures
Ladd also wrote and oversaw the comedy Mrs Munck, a film which starred Diane Ladd and former husband actor Bruce Dern. “Bruce is a talented star,” she said. “It was a privilege to guide him in a movie. Indeed, I stand as the only woman in history to direct her ex-husband. I make a joke: ‘I advise females, should you desire retribution, helm a movie with your ex.’ Though I’m just teasing.”
Personal Connections
Ladd was also the third cousin of the great Tennessee Williams, who she referred to as “a major inspiration in my life”.
Back in 2018, doctors misdiagnosed Ladd with lung disease and informed she had just six months to live but made a full recovery after her daughter moved her to a different hospital.
“Should you harness your suffering and avoid letting it accumulate like an injury, instead use it to investigate, to make the path clearer for you and those around, then you are winning,” Ladd said.
