Diane Ladd, 3-time Oscar nominee, dies at 89

Contents of the article

OJAI, California. – Diane Ladd, a three-time Academy Award nominee and actor of rare timing and intensity whose roles ranged from a sassy waitress in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” to a conniving parent in “Wild at Heart,” has died at age 89.

Contents of the article

Ladd's death was announced Monday by daughter Laura Dern, who issued a statement saying her mother and occasional co-star died at her home in Ojai, California, with Dern at her side. Dern, who called Ladd her “amazing hero” and “profound gift of motherhood,” did not immediately provide a cause of death.

Contents of the article

Contents of the article

“She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and sensitive spirit that it seemed only dreams could create,” Dern wrote. “We are lucky to have her. Now she flies with her angels.”

A gifted comedic and dramatic actor, Ladd had a long career on television and the stage before finding success as a film actor in Martin Scorsese's 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. She was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of the blunt and outspoken Flo and starred in dozens of films over the ensuing decades. Her many roles include “Chinatown,” “Primary Colors” and two other films for which she won best supporting awards: “Wild at Heart” and “Wandering Rose,” both of which starred her daughter. She also continued to work in television, starring in, among others, the series ER, Touched by an Angel and Alice, a spin-off of the film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

Contents of the article

Contents of the article

Ladd was connected to the arts through marriage and blood. Tennessee Williams was a second cousin, and first husband Bruce Dern, Laura's father, was himself an Academy Award nominee. Ladd and Laura Dern achieved rare success among the mother-daughter nominees for their work in “Wandering Rose,” and they also played an unforgettable couple in “Wild at Heart,” Ladd's personal favorite and winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. In David Lynch's dark, farcical noir, her character, Marietta, is willing to do anything, including murder, to keep her daughter (Laura Dern) away from her ex-lover, played by Nicolas Cage. The director called on Ladd for some Lynchian moves and responded with some of his own.

Contents of the article

“At one point the script said Marietta would go to bed and curl up with her dog and suck her thumb,” she told Vulture in 2024. “I looked at him and said, 'David, I don't want to do this.' He said, “What do you want to do?” I said, “I want to wear a long satin nightgown, I want to stand in the middle of the bed with a martini and drink it, and I want to sway to the old music in my head.” He said, “OK, I did it and he liked it.”

A native of Laurel, Mississippi, Ladd was born Rose Diane Ladner and was clearly destined to stand out. In her 2006 memoir, The Spiral School of Life, she recalled her great-grandmother telling her that one day she would find herself “in front of a screen” and “commanding” her audience. Before Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, she had worked in television since the 1950s, when she was in her early 20s, on shows such as Perry Mason, Gunsmoke and The Big Valley.

Contents of the article

By the mid-1970s, she had lived her life well enough to tell The New York Times that she no longer denied herself the right to call herself great.

“I’m not saying that now,” she said. “I can do Shakespeare, Ibsen, an English accent, an Irish accent, no accent, stand on my head, tap dance, sing, look 17 or 70.”

Ladd was married three times and divorced twice, to Bruce Dern and William A. Shea Jr. In 1976, around the time her second marriage ended, she told the Times that neither of her husbands knew “how to show love.”

“I come from the South and from a man, my father, who gave me love in a rocking chair. My people spread love everywhere, and why I chose two men who needed someone to give love and they didn't know how to give it…” She paused. “I hope I don’t do this again.”

Ladd's third marriage, to author and former PepsiCo executive Robert Charles Hunter, lasted from 1999 until his death in August.

— Associated Press writer Lindsey Bahr contributed to this story.

Contents of the article