Oscar-Nominated Star Diane Ladd, Known For Her Role in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Has Died at 89 Years Old.
The Academy Award-nominated performer Diane Ladd left us 89 years old.
This star, with filmography spanned Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, left this world in her residence in California’s Ojai. This announcement was revealed via an announcement by her daughter, Oscar-winning actor Laura Dern.
Her daughter, who performed alongside her mom in a number of films such as Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose, described her as “my wonderful hero as well as my special gift as a mother”, noting that she was by her side as she died.
“She was the most wonderful grandmother, mother, daughter, star, artist along with caring individual that seemed almost dreamlike,” she stated. “We were lucky to have her. She is now with the angels.”
Beginnings and Rise to Fame
Ladd’s early career included minor parts on television series like Perry Mason while the seventies featured her performing with Jack Nicholson in the classic Chinatown.
That very year, the year 1974, she appeared with actress Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese’s praised comedy drama Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. The performance brought Ladd an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.
Subsequent Years
In the 1980s, she was seen in the thriller the movie Black Widow as well as comedy sequel National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and appeared on the show Alice, a sitcom inspired by the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
In the following decade, she received a further Oscar nomination for supporting actress Academy Award nomination for her performance in the David Lynch film the movie Wild at Heart where she played the mother of her biological child the character played by Dern. A year later she was awarded another nomination for her performance in Rambling Rose, another movie which included Laura Dern.
“This was the film that Princess Diana chose as her absolutely favorite, and she flew Laura and I to England for a royal premiere and a celebration in our honor,” Ladd said about the film Rambling Rose. “She sat with us, holding both our hands, and crying, seeing us act.”
That decade featured performances in comedy Cemetery Club reuniting her with her co-star Burstyn, Primary Colors, a satirical film, featuring John Travolta and Payne’s Citizen Ruth, a dark comedy in which she portrayed the mother of Dern once more. Those years also earned her TV award nominations for work in the series Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, Grace Under Fire plus Touched by an Angel.
Collaborations with Daughter
She continued to star with Laura Dern in films blending humor and drama the film Daddy and Them, the David Lynch project Inland Empire and Mike White’s comedy-drama series Enlightened. She also appeared alongside actress Sandra Bullock in the film 28 Days, Sir Anthony Hopkins in that movie and with Jennifer Lawrence in the film Joy.
Subsequent TV appearances featured the series Ray Donovan and Young Sheldon, a comedy.
Writing and Directing
She also authored and helmed the humorous movie the movie Mrs Munck featuring her and ex-husband Bruce Dern, an actor. “Bruce is a great actor,” she noted. “I’m privileged to have directed him on a project. Indeed, I stand as the only woman ever who directed her former husband. I make a joke: ‘I tell women, if you seek payback, helm a movie with your ex.’ Though I’m just teasing.”
Family Ties
Ladd was also a relative of playwright Tennessee Williams, who she called “a great influence on my life”.
In 2018, doctors misdiagnosed Ladd with a respiratory illness and told her life expectancy was six months yet she recovered completely when her daughter transferred her to a different hospital.
“Should you harness your suffering and avoid letting it accumulate like a sore or something, instead apply it to discover, to make the path clearer for personal and collective growth, then you are winning,” Ladd remarked.
