Laura Dern’s mother, Diane Ladd, has died at the age of 89. The Oscar-nominated “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” star also garnered attention for her roles in “Wild at Heart” and “Rambling Rose.”
Diane Ladd, the prolific Oscar-nominated actress and mother of Laura Dern, has died. She was 89 years old.
Dern shared the news of her mother’s passing on November 3 in a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Diane Ladd, my great hero and profound gift as a mother, passed by me this morning,” the statement read at her home in Ojai, California. “She was the best daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only a dream could create.”
Dern added, “We were blessed to have her. She is now flying with the angels.”
USA TODAY has reached out to Rudd and Dern’s representatives.
Rudd earned her first of three Oscar nominations for her role as Flo, an ordinary diner waitress who befriends Ellen Burstyn’s widowed heroine in Martin Scorsese’s 1974 drama Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. She was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for David Lynch’s Wild at Heart and Martha Coolidge’s Rambling Rose, in which she co-starred with Dern in the early 1990s.
“I love working with Laura,” Rudd told New Orleans Magazine in 2014. “One time when we were doing Wild at Heart, she said, ‘Mom, how was your day?'” And I said, “That was great.” I worked with an amazing person that everyone loves and respects. “She said, “Who is that?” And I said, “It’s you, Laura.” I’m proud of you not only for your professional talent, but also for your humility as a human being. ” ”
Born in Laurel, Mississippi, Ladd began acting in the late 1950s on television crime series such as “Decoys” and “Naked City.” She continued to work steadily for the next ten years, finding success on the big screen in 1974 when she played prostitute Ida Sessions in Roman Polanski’s classic film noir Chinatown, and in 1989 as Chevy Chase’s proud mother in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
When she first auditioned for the holiday comedy, “I said I was only about six years older than Chevy,” Rudd recalled at a 2019 cast reunion. But after getting hair and makeup and getting older, “I walked in and Chevy was there and I said, ‘Sonny Boy! I love you, Sonny Boy!'” And I got the job. ”
Rudd married actor Bruce Dern in 1960, but they divorced nine years later. They had two daughters, Laura and Diane, but the latter died at just 18 months after a tragic pool accident. Ladd was married twice more, to businessman William Shea Jr. and to Robert Hunter. Her husband of 26 years, Hunter, passed away in July at the age of 77.
Diane Ladd speaks honestly about Laura Dern’s father Bruce
Mother-daughter acting duo Diane Ladd and Laura Dern chat with USA TODAY’s Ralphie Aversa about an episode of “unFamiliar” on Ancestry’s YouTube.
Rudd opened up about her marriage to Dern in a 2023 interview with USA TODAY, saying, “He’s not a great husband, but he’s a really great actor. …[Laura]is half of me and half of him.” The mother-daughter duo continued to work together in the 2000s, appearing in David Lynch’s surreal Inland Empire and the HBO drama Enlightened.
Over a six-decade career, Rudd has been nominated for three Emmy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards, including one win for the sitcom Alice, a spin-off series of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. (She played Flo in the original film and another waitress named Belle in the CBS show.) More recently, she appeared in episodes of TV’s “Ray Donovan” and “Young Sheldon.”
In 2018, Rudd was diagnosed with a lung disease and given six months to live, but doctors advised him that walking would help increase his lung capacity. So she began taking daily walks with Dern, which her daughter recorded and later compiled into a book titled Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter’s Story of Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding).
“We started walking to strengthen our lungs,” Rudd said in a joint interview with Dern for The New York Times in 2023. “You made me walk and talk. That’s when we went beyond our intuition and said it all out loud. If someone reads our book and does the same thing – if they actually tell their loved one, we’ll write it. It won’t be in vain. All I can offer is a reflection of life itself. Art is just a mirror, and that’s why we go to the movies to find out who we are.”
Contributor: Edward Segarra
