Ladd was nominated for three Academy Awards over the course of her legendary career, two of which were for films she co-starred in alongside her daughter.

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

Ladd was nominated for three Academy Awards over the course of her legendary career, two of which were for films she co-starred in alongside her daughter.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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on November 3, 2025 4:28 p.m. ET

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Diane Ladd in 2015. Credit:

Mark Sagliocco/Getty

Diane Ladd, the Oscar-nominated star of generation-defining films like *Chinatown*, *Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore*, and *Wild at Heart*, and who was the mother of actress Laura Dern, has died at the age of 89.

Ladd's daughter confirmed her mother's death on Monday with a statement shared to * *that read, "My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother passed with me beside her this morning at her home in Ojai, Calif." The *Big Little Lies *star continued, "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."

Kris Kristofferson and Diane Ladd in 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore'.

Ladd was born Rose Diane Ladner in Laurel, Miss., on Nov. 29, 1935. The only child to a veterinarian father and actress mother, Ladd was destined for the kind of path-breaking career she'd eventually win, counting Tennessee Williams, the greatest literary export of her home state, among her relatives.

The actress married Bruce Dern in 1960 — the year after he starred in a production of the Williams play *Sweet Bird of Youth *alongside Geraldine Page and Paul Newman. She and Dern produced two children before their divorce in 1969, remaining amicable for the rest of her life. "He's one of the world's greatest actors, Bruce. He wasn't such a great husband, but he's a really great actor," Ladd joked in 2023 by her daughter's side.

In 2015, Ladd noted that she never dreamed of Hollywood stardom after breaking out on Broadway. "I wanted to stay in New York and become a theater actress. I loved the theater," she told the *Los Angeles Times*. But uncredited parts in the sensational 1961 Carroll Baker thriller *Something Wild*, and Norman Jewison's nightclub comedy *40 Pounds of Trouble *from the year after, led to significant parts in some of the landmark films of the latter half of the Hollywood century.

Diane Ladd wanted Laura Dern to quit acting to become a lawyer

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Diane Ladd, Laura Dern, and Bruce Dern in Hollywood in 2010.

Frank Trapper/Corbis via Getty

Ladd received three Oscar nominations for her oddball, spitfire, entirely idiosyncratic performances in three major films: *Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore*, the 1974 feminist drama that helped launch the career of its young director, Martin Scorsese; *Wild at Heart*, the Cannes-winning road epic from David Lynch that transformed arthouse cinema; and *Rambling Rose*, another memorable collaboration with Laura made the year after *Wild at Heart*, which cemented their indelible screen chemistry.

Laura and Ladd shared the screen numerous times in an ongoing collaboration spanning decades. The *Marriage Story *star first appeared as a child in an uncredited role in the Scorsese film — Ladd's first taste of major acclaim as the sarcastic waitress Flo. Ladd played Dern's mother in *Wild at Heart*, her mother figure in *Rambling Rose*, and they'd go on to star together in the ripped-from-the-headlines miniseries *The Siege at Ruby Ridge*, Laura's cult classic HBO series *Enlightened*, the abortion dramedy *Citizen Ruth*, and *Inland Empire*, Lynch's last film, for which they reteamed in 2006.

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"She was only, like, 11 years old, and I said, 'Don't be an actress. Be a doctor, be a lawyer,'" Ladd told CBS News in 2023, reflecting on raising her Oscar-winning daughter. "Nobody cares if you put on weight or your chin points when you cry if you're a doctor. They just want you to be the best you can be. But an actress? They care, care, care, care, care."

Ladd worked steadily through her sixth decade in show business, appearing in the last five years on the *Big Bang Theory *spinoff series *Young Sheldon*, and in the coming-of-age drama *Gigi & Nate*. In 2010, Ladd, Bruce Dern, and their daughter were honored with adjoining stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in a joint ceremony commemorating their indelible contributions to the art of acting.**

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Source: “EW Movies”