Acclaimed Actress Diane Ladd, Celebrated For Her Role in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Dies at Age 89.
The award-nominated actor Diane Ladd, a Hollywood veteran left us 89 years old.
The actor, whose credits featured Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, left this world in her residence in California’s Ojai. The news was shared in a statement from her daughter, Oscar-winning actor Laura Dern.
Laura Dern, who starred with her mom in various films like Rambling Rose, referred to her as “my amazing hero as well as my profound gift as a mother”, writing that she was by her side when she passed.
“She was the most wonderful grandmother, mother, daughter, performer, creative as well as caring individual that felt like a dream come true,” she expressed. “We were lucky to have her. She is now with the angels.”
Early Career and Major Success
Ladd’s early career saw supporting roles on television series such as Perry Mason whereas the seventies saw her starring alongside Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.
That very year, 1974, she performed with actress Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed comedy drama Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, a classic. Her acting brought Ladd an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.
Later Decades
In the 1980s, she starred in crime thriller Black Widow plus funny follow-up Christmas Vacation and also took part in the show Alice, a television series derived from the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
In the subsequent decade, she was given a further Oscar nomination for supporting actress Academy Award nomination for her part in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart in which she portrayed the mother of her real-life daughter Laura Dern’s role. The following year she obtained a further nomination for her acting in Rambling Rose which included Laura Dern.
“This was the picture which Princess Diana selected as her very favorite, and she invited us to England for a special screening and a party for us,” Ladd said about the film Rambling Rose. “She sat with us, taking our hands, and crying, seeing us act.”
That decade included parts in comedy The Cemetery Club bringing her back with Ellen Burstyn, the movie Primary Colors, a political comedy, featuring John Travolta and the film by Alexander Payne Citizen Ruth where she played Laura Dern’s mom once more. That period also saw her score nominations for Emmy Awards for roles in Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, the show Grace Under Fire and Touched by an Angel.
Partnerships with Her Daughter
She continued to star with Laura Dern in dramatic comedies the film Daddy and Them, the David Lynch project Inland Empire, a surreal film and Mike White’s comedy-drama series Enlightened, a TV series. She additionally starred with actress Sandra Bullock in the film 28 Days, Anthony Hopkins in The World’s Fastest Indian plus Jennifer Lawrence in Joy.
Her more recent television parts included Ray Donovan and Young Sheldon.
Behind the Camera
She also authored and oversaw the humorous movie Mrs Munck, a film featuring Diane Ladd and ex-husband Bruce Dern, an actor. “Bruce is a great actor,” she said. “I’m privileged to have directed him in a movie. In fact, I’m the only woman in history to helm a film with her ex. I make a joke: ‘I advise females, if you seek payback, helm a movie with your ex.’ However, I’m joking.”
Family Ties
She happened to be the third cousin of playwright Tennessee Williams, whom she described as “a significant impact on my life”.
During 2018, Ladd was misdiagnosed with a respiratory illness and informed she had just six months to live but made a full recovery when her daughter shifted her to a new hospital.
“If you can take your pain and avoid letting it accumulate like a sore or something, rather utilize it to investigate, to make the path clearer for you and those around, then you are triumphing,” Ladd expressed.
