Diane Ladd, the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated actress best known for memorable turns in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown and David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, died Monday morning at her home in Ojai, CA, according to her daughter, Laura Dern, who was at her bedside. Ladd was 89.
Dern confirmed the news to Deadline and offered the following statement:
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My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother, Diane Ladd, passed with me beside her this morning, at her home in Ojai, Ca.
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 first movie role was Roger Corman’s Wild Angels (1966), in which she starred with her first husband, Bruce Dern, alongside Nancy Sinatra and Peter Fonda. She and Dern divorced in 1969, shortly after their daughter Laura was born.
While their divorce was finalized decades ago, Dern offered an appreciation today in which he called Ladd “tremendous actress” and “a great value as a decades long board member of SAG.”
He continued, “She lived a good life. She saw everything the way it was. She was a great teammate to her fellow actors. She was funny, clever, gracious.
“But most importantly to me, she was a wonderful mother to our incredible wunderkind daughter. And for that I will be forever grateful to her.”
Ladd memorably played Ida Sessions in Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), a pivotal character who helps lead Jack Nicholson’s Jake Giddes to the truth behind the murder of Hollis Mulwray — the film’s central mystery.
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That same year, Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore brought Ladd her first Oscar nomination. In it, she defined the Southern crackerjack Flo, a waitress who works alongside Ellen Burstyn’s Alice. The later role was played by Polly Holliday in the TV sitcom Alice.
Burstyn won the Best Actress Oscar for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Ladd received a Best Supporting Actress nomination, but lost to Ingrid Bergman for Murder on the Orient Express. Ladd did win a BAFTA for her work in the film.
CBS brought her onto the TV series adaptation of Scorsese’s film, Alice. While Holliday played Flo, Ladd was cast as singing waitress Belle who, like Ladd, hailed from Mississippi. She won a Golden Globe for the portrayal, appearing in 23 episodes of the hit show during its fourth and fifth seasons in 1980-81.
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Ladd’s second Oscar Nomination was for the role of Marietta in Lynch’s Wild At Heart (1990). In the film, which stars Nicolas Cage as Sailor and Dern as Lula, Ladd plays Marietta, Lula’s vengeful mother who hires a hitman to kill Sailor after the duo runs off together. Lynch’s film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes that year.
Her third Oscar nomination came for Rambling Rose (1991), in which she co-starred along with Robert Duval, Lucas Haas and Dern. She and Dern made show business history as the first mother and daughter tandem ever to be nominated for the Oscar for the same motion picture in the same year.
The duo also co-starred in the films Citizen Ruth and Inland Empire and in the HBO series Enlightened as well as White Lightning and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, on which the then-very young Dern was uncredited.
Ladd’s other memorable film appearances include roles in the perennial holiday favorite Christmas Vacation (1989), Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), Primary Colors (1998), 28 Days (2000) and Joy (2015).
She starred in dozens more films and television shows, including Stephen King’s 15-hour 2004 ABCC miniseries, Kingdom Hospital, playing psychic Mrs. Druse.
More recently, she was seen in Lifetime’s Movie of the Week Montana Sky and in the film The World’s Fastest Indian co-starring Anthony Hopkins.
Ladd made her directing and writing debut with the 1995 film Mrs. Munck, starring Bruce Dern, Kelly Preston, the late Shelley Winters and herself.
Ladd was an active in addressing issues involving the acting community. She was a member of the Actors Studio’s acting, directing and playwriting units, and a Screen Actors Guild National Board Member and the Founder and President of the Art & Culture Taskforce, ACT – a charitable organization dedicated to strengthening education and the arts in America.
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