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
November 3, 2025 3:53 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 Entertainment Weekly 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."
Diane Ladd in 2015 in Los Angeles.
Angela Weiss/Getty
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, mold-shaking 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.
Diane Ladd wanted Laura Dern to quit acting to become a lawyer
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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.
She began her career during the studio era, with an uncredited role in the sensational 1961 Carroll Baker thriller Something Wild, and turned in her final screen performance just three years ago, in the coming-of-age drama Gigi & Nate. Ladd's extraordinary six-decade career comprised nearly 150 roles in films, TV series, and stage productions, directed by some of the brightest luminaries of her generation and several that followed.
