Diane Ladd, the Academy Award-nominated actress who starred in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” “Wild at Heart,” and “Rambling Rose,” died Monday. She was 89.
“My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother passed with me beside her this morning at her home in Ojai, California,” her daughter, Oscar winner Laura Dern, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created. We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.”
Ladd’s other credits include television appearances on “Naked City,” “Perry Mason” and “Mr. Novak.”
She was nominated for three Oscars and three Emmys. Ladd, who shortened her name from Ladner when making her Hollywood debut, earned her first official movie role in “The Wild Angels,” in 1966.
She starred in the film alongside her husband, Bruce Dern, and longtime friend, Peter Fonda. In 2019, she recounted her time on set with Fonda and Dern during an interview with People.
“I remember when we were filming Wild Angels, my very first film, we were practically children back then.”
“It was a foggy night, and some bikers came up the mountain and threatened to tie Peter and another crew member to a generator… [but] Peter and Bruce Dern protected us and led us all to safety. His courage always shined through like that,” she told the outlet at the time.
After receiving her first Academy Award nomination for her role in Martin Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” in 1974, Ladd took on several more film roles, including, “Something Wicked This Way Comes” in 1983, and several more before her final movie in “Gigi & Nate,” which was released in 2022.
Ladd was initially against her daughter, Laura Dern, following in her footsteps and becoming an actress. Laura told People in 2018 that her mother encouraged her to pursue other careers than acting.
“I think the quote of my mother’s was, ‘Be a lawyer, be a doctor, be a leper missionary, but don’t be an actress!'” she said at the time.
Laura has starred in several films with her parents, but the first was alongside Ladd in 1990’s “Wild at Heart.”
This role earned Ladd the best supporting actress Oscar nomination.
Over the course of Ladd’s life, she was married three times. Her first marriage was to Bruce Dern in 1960. They welcomed two daughters, Diane and Laura.
She was then married to William A. Shea, Jr. for seven years before marrying Robert Charles Hunter in 1990. Hunter died earlier this year at 77.
Laura’s sister and Ladd’s daughter, Diane, died in a swimming pool accident when she was 18 months old. “She hit her head and knocked herself out. And it all happened instantly. And she died, and you will never get over that,” Ladd told CBS News in 2023.
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She continued, “I don’t care what you say to yourself. I don’t care who says what. The child is not supposed to die before the parent.”
In 2018, Ladd was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a life-threatening lung disease. After the diagnosis, Laura and Ladd began taking walks together, and began talking. This led to the creation of their joint memoir, “Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding).”
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In Jan. 2023, Laura discussed her “deepest, most honest” conversations with her mother.
“We started taking walks. Walks that resulted in us having the deepest, most honest and even the funniest conversations of our lives together. This book is the result of not waiting to share it all and has brought us closer than ever,” she said at the time.
People asked Ladd what the most important thing she learned about her daughter was. She replied, “As parents, we do not tell our children all of our truths because we want to be loved and respected. So honestly, we lie a little. What I discovered is that there were things I hadn’t told her that I should have because I felt it would make her feel guilty or burdened. Instead, it was a release for her.”
Laura chimed in, “She has the most open, honest face. You know what she’s feeling. It’s an amazing thing to have as a gift because I always knew I was loved. Even when it was a ferocious face or an angry face, it was so full and told so many stories that I always felt the love coming from her.”
