Diane Ladd, Oscar-nominated actress and mother of Laura Dern, dies at 89

Diane Ladd, the actress known for her Oscar-nominated roles in “Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,” “Wild at Heart” and “Stray Rose,” has died, her representative told CBS News on Monday. She was 89.

Her daughter Laura Dern said in a statement that she was by Ladd's side when she died at her home in Ojai, California.

“She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and gentle spirit that seemingly only dreams could create,” Dern said. “We're lucky to have her. Now she flies with her angels.”

Dern's statement did not immediately provide a cause of death.

In 2023 mother and daughter told CBS Sunday Morning that the two began taking daily walks around Santa Monica after learning that Ladd had developed a lung disease believed to be caused by exposure to pesticides. Dern was told her mother had only six months to live.

It was then that they had a conversation that would eventually fill pages of “Darling, baby, mine“, their joint memoir, named after an old folk song Ladd's father sang. They discussed everything from Ladd's marriage and divorce from Laura's father, actor Bruce Dern, to her attempts to dissuade Laura from joining the family business.

“She was only about 11 years old and I said, ‘Don’t be an actress. Be a doctor, be a lawyer,” Ladd said. “Nobody cares if you gain weight or your chin when you cry if you're a doctor. They just want you to be the best you can be. But an actress? They care, they care, they care, they care, they care.”

But Dern said nothing stopped her from acting in films: “No. That's all I knew.”

A native of Laurel, Mississippi, Ladd was clearly destined to stand out. In her 2006 memoir, The Spiral School of Life, she recalled how her great-grandmother told her that one day she would find herself “in front of a screen” and “commanding” her audience.

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.”

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 credits include Chinatown, Primary Colors and two other films for which she received best supporting reviews: Wild at Heart and Stray 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.

Ladd was connected to the arts through marriage and blood. Tennessee Williams was her second cousin, and her first husband Bruce Dern, Laura's father, was himself an Academy Award nominee. Ladd and Laura Dern achieved a rare feat among the mother-daughter nominees for their work in “Stray Rose.”