{"id":259781,"date":"2025-11-03T23:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T23:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/259781\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T23:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T23:03:07","slug":"wild-at-heart-actress-laura-derns-mother-was-89","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/259781\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Wild at Heart’ Actress, Laura Dern’s Mother Was 89"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDiane Ladd<\/a>, a three-time Oscar-nominated actress for her roles in \u201cAlice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore,\u201d \u201cWild at Heart\u201d and \u201cRambling Rose,\u201d died Monday morning at her residence in Ojai, Calif, a representative for her daughter, Laura Dern<\/a>, confirmed to\u00a0Variety. Ladd was 89.<\/p>\n

\n\tLaura Dern said in a statement, \u201cMy 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe prolific Ladd drew vivid character portraits throughout her career, and, while it\u2019s not noteworthy to have family in the business, Ladd was unusual for the number of times she and her daughter acted together.<\/p>\n

\n\tLaura Dern\u2019s father Bruce Dern<\/a>, who was married to Ladd during the 1960s, said in a statement, \u201cDiane was a tremendous actress and I feel like, a bit of a \u2018hidden treasure\u2019 until she ran into David Lynch. When he cast her as Laura\u2018s mom in \u2018Wild at Heart\u2019 it felt like the world then really understood her brilliance. She was a great value as a decades-long board member of SAG, giving a real actress\u2019 point of view. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLadd drew supporting actress Oscar nominations for Martin Scorsese\u2019s 1974 film \u201cAlice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore,\u201d in which she memorably portrayed the earthy, colorful waitress Flo; David Lynch\u2019s 1990 feature \u201cWild at Heart,\u201d which saw Ladd play the wildly villainous mother of Laura Dern\u2019s character, with a touch of the Wicked Witch of the West; and Martha Coolidge\u2019s \u201cRambling Rose,\u201d set in 1935 Georgia, in which Ladd played not the mother of Dern\u2019s character but the defender of Dern\u2019s sexually adventurous Rose, and for which both Ladd and Dern drew Oscar nominations.<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, the nominations for Ladd and Dern in \u201cRambling Rose\u201d represent the only instance of a mother and daughter being nominated for the same movie. In \u201cRambling Rose,\u201d Peter Travers in Rolling Stone said Ladd \u201cbrings welcome feminist bite to her role,\u201d while in \u201cWild at Heart,\u201d Travers wrote that Ladd \u201csqueezes her juicy role with scene-stealing zest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReviewing \u201cAlice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore\u201d for New York Magazine, Judith Crist wrote of the \u201cremarkable performance by Diane Ladd as a foul-mouthed heart-of-gold waitress-colleague.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLadd and Dern had more recently appeared together in HBO\u2019s 2011-13 series \u201cEnlightened,\u201d in which Dern starred as Amy, a self-destructive executive trying to put her life back together after she implodes. Ladd played her mother, Helen, with whom she has an awkward relationship. Ladd got a chance to shine in the series in the episode \u201cConsider Helen,\u201d which put her front and center.<\/p>\n

\n\tMore recently, in David O. Russell\u2019s film 2015 film \u201cJoy,\u201d starring Jennifer Lawrence, Ladd played the beloved grandmother of Lawrence\u2019s title character, supplying gentle storybook narration.<\/p>\n

\n\tLadd had a small but key role in the classic 1974 neo-noir \u201cChinatown\u201d as Ida Sessions, a SAG-card-carrying sex worker who pretends to be Evelyn Mulwray to lure Jack Nicholson\u2019s Jake Gittes into the case of Hollis Mulwray and the nefarious goings-on at the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power.<\/p>\n

\n\tLadd played the wife of Gene Hackman\u2019s character in the 1981 Hackman-Barbra Streisand vehicle \u201cAll Night Long\u201d; Ladd played the mother of Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) in \u201cNational Lampoon\u2019s Christmas Vacation\u201d (1989) and of Jack Stanton (John Travolta), the lightly fictionalized version of Bill Clinton, in \u201cPrimary Colors\u201d (1998). <\/p>\n

\n\tOther bigscreen credits include \u201cSomething Wicked This Way Comes\u201d; Bob Rafelson\u2019s \u201cBlack Widow\u201d; Martha Coolidge\u2019s \u201cPlain Clothes\u201d; 1992\u2019s \u201cHold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me,\u201d a screwball comedy in which she played a flirtatious but aging Southern belle alongside Mary Lanier, her own mother; \u201cThe Cemetery Club\u201d(in which Ladd played a Jewish widow alongside Ellen Burstyn and Olympia Dukakis); \u201cGhosts of Mississippi\u201d; Sandra Bullock rehab dramedy \u201c28 Days\u201d; and Anthony Hopkins vehicle \u201cThe World\u2019s Fastest Indian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLadd and her first husband, actor Bruce Dern, welcomed their daughter, Laura Dern, on Feb. 10, 1967. The couple divorced in 1969.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a child, Laura Dern appeared, uncredited, in a couple of Ladd\u2019s films. Later, once they both co-starred in \u201cWild at Heart\u201d and \u201cRambling Rose,\u201d they appeared together in Alexander Payne\u2019s abortion comedy \u201cCitizen Ruth,\u201d in which it was Dern\u2019s turn to headline and Ladd\u2019s to cameo uncredited. Both had substantial roles (though Dern starred) in 1996 CBS telepic \u201cThe Siege at Ruby Ridge,\u201d and they starred as mother and daughter again in Billy Bob Thornton\u2019s country-fried 2001 comedy \u201cDaddy and Them.\u201d Dern starred and Ladd had a supporting role in Showtime\u2019s health-care issue movie \u201cDamaged Care\u201d (2002). The pair returned to the world of David Lynch for the exceptionally bizarre \u201cInland Empire,\u201d in which Dern starred as an actress who blurs into her role and Ladd cameoed as what J. Hoberman described as a \u201cnasty TV gossip.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLadd tried her hand at directing in 1995 with Showtime\u2019s \u201cMrs. Munck,\u201d for which she adapted a novel by Ella Leffland. She starred opposite ex-husband Bruce Dern in the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tLadd worked a great deal in television as well and was nominated for three Emmy awards: in 1993 for a guest appearance on \u201cDr. Quinn, Medicine Woman\u201d; in 1994 for guest actress in a comedy series for \u201cGrace Under Fire\u201d; and in 1997 for guest actress in a drama series for \u201cTouched by an Angel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHaving played Flo in Scorsese\u2019s \u201cAlice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore,\u201d Ladd also appeared on the CBS sitcom based on the film, \u201cAlice,\u201d but in a different role: waitress Belle Dupree, who appeared on the show for a single season in 1980-1981, after the TV series\u2019 Flo, played by Polly Holliday, was spun off onto her own show.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe had earlier been a member of the cast of soap opera \u201cThe Secret Storm.\u201d Ladd\u00a0also starred in the 2004 horror miniseries \u201cStephen King Presents Kingdom Hospital,\u201d did guest spots on series including \u201cL.A. Law,\u201d \u201cER\u201d and \u201cCold Case,\u201d and appeared in a long list of TV movies.<\/p>\n

\n\tRose Diane Ladnier was born in Meridian, Miss., but moved to New York City while still a teen. Ladd worked as a model and a dancer at the Copacabana nightclub before making her stage debut in Tennessee Williams\u2019 \u201cOrpheus Descending.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1961, Ladd debuted in her first feature film, \u201cSomething Wild.\u201d The actress made her debut on television, performing in the TV series \u201cThe Big Story,\u201d in an late 1950s episode called \u201cThe Smell of Death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHer first feature roles were uncredited, including in \u201cMurder, Inc.\u201d and \u201c40 Pounds of Trouble.\u201d With Bruce Dern, she appeared in Roger Corman\u2019s 1966 bikers movie \u201cWild Angels,\u201d the film that inspired Peter Fonda to make \u201cEasy Rider.\u201d She also appeared in Mark Rydell\u2019s \u201cThe Reivers\u201d; the Paul Newman-directed \u201cWUSA\u201d; and, just before \u201cChinatown,\u201d the Burt Reynolds vehicle \u201cWhite Lightning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLadd\u2019s book of short stories \u201cA Bad Afternoon for a Piece of Cake\u201d was published in 2013.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe was married three times, the first time to Bruce Dern from 1960 to 1969, the second time to William A. Shea Jr. from 1969 to 1977. She married her third husband, Robert Charles Hunter, in 1999. Hunter died in July at 77.<\/p>\n

\n\tLadd is survived by her daughter Laura Dern and two grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diane Ladd, a three-time Oscar-nominated actress for her roles in \u201cAlice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore,\u201d \u201cWild at Heart\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[120506,49,48,361,120507,75,49212],"class_list":{"0":"post-259781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-bruce-dern","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-diane-ladd","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-laura-dern"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}