Diane Ladd dies: 3-time Oscar nominee and Laura Dern’s mother

Diane Ladd, a three-time Oscar-nominated actress who has been praised for her work in films including “Rambling Rose,” “Wild at Heart” and “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.” She was 89 years old.

Oscar winner Laura Dern, Ladd’s daughter with Oscar-nominated actor Bruce Dern, announced her mother’s death in a statement Monday. “My wonderful hero and my deepest gift of a mother, Diane Ladd, passed away this morning with me by her side at her home in Ojai,” Dern wrote. The cause of death has not been disclosed.

“She was a great daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and compassionate soul who could only make dreams come true,” Dern, 58, said in a statement. “We are blessed to have her.”

The Mississippi native Ladd was a versatile and enduring talent whose screen career from the 1960s to 2020 included more than 200 film and television credits and numerous Emmy and Oscar nominations. Most famously, she appeared as roadside diner waitress Florence Jean “Flo” Castleberry in director Martin Scorsese and writer Robert Getchell’s 1974 feature Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

She greatly elevated her side character, earning supporting actress Oscar nominations for the role and inspiring reprises of the charming waitress in the TV adaptation “Alice” and its spinoff, “Flo,” starring Polly Holliday. She previously appeared as Isabel “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. Although 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 the late David Lynch director Wild at Heart and Inland Empire. The mother-daughter duo also appeared on HBO’s “The Light.”

Dern has openly embraced her family’s Hollywood lineage. At the 2020 Palm Springs International Film Festival, the “Blue Velvet” star told attendees that Ladd and ex-husband Bruce Dern — who were married from 1960 to 1969 — gave birth to her in the nearby mountain town of Idyll Wilde during the production of the 1966 Roger Wilde film “Roger Wilde Corman’s Breakout Movie.”

Throughout his career, Ladd collaborated with notable filmmakers, among them Roman Polanski, on “Chinatown”; Rob Renner, for “The Hills of Mississippi”; and David O. Russell, in “Happiness.” Her film credits include “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” “Heal Me, Trail Me, Kiss Me” and “The Graveyard Club,” among others. In 1995, she directed Bruce Dern in her directorial debut, Mrs. Monk.

Ladd enjoyed a long film career, but her television career was extensive, with roles on such diverse programs as “Gunsmoke,” “Alice,” “ER,” “Ray Donovan” and “Young Sheldon.” In 1980 she won a Golden Globe Award for her work on “Alice” and from 1993 to 1997 she received three Primetime Emmy nominations for Guest Actress for “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” “Grace Under Fire” and “Touched by an Angel.”

Rose Diane Lanier was born on November 29, 1935 to a veterinarian father and a housewife mother. She began performing as a child and sang with the French Quarter band Dixie Hi De Ho Jo while attending school in New Orleans, eventually ending up 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 group formed by John Carradine, father of “Kill Bill” star David Carradine.

Ladd went on to perform at New York’s Copacabana and had roles in various stage productions, including “Shore Passengers” with Robert De Niro and “Women Speak” with Jane Fonda, according to her website.

After her marriage to Bruce Dern ended, Ladd married William A. Shea Jr. They divorced in 1977. She married for the 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 are parents to a second daughter. Diane Elizabeth was born in 1961 but died in a drowning accident at 18 months.

“She’s flying with her angels now,” her mother, Laura Dern, said Monday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.