Diane Ladd, the acclaimed actress whose career spanned more than six decades, as well as the mother of actress Laura Dern, has died at the age of 89.
Dern, 58, shared in a statement on Monday: “My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother, Diane Ladd, passed with me beside her this morning, at her home in Ojai, Calif. 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.”
Born Rose Diane Ladner on November 29, 1935, in Laurel, Mississippi, Ladd was the only child of veterinarian Preston Paul Ladner and actress Mary Bernadette Ladner. Surrounded by creativity, she began acting, singing, and dancing at an early age, eventually shortening her surname to “Ladd” when she pursued work in Hollywood. Among her extended family was playwright Tennessee Williams, whose influence loomed large over her artistic roots.
Ladd’s screen career began with television roles in the 1950s and ’60s on series such as Perry Mason, Naked City, and Mr. Novak. Her first major film credit came in the 1966 biker drama The Wild Angels, where she starred alongside Nancy Sinatra, Peter Fonda, and Bruce Dern — the man who would become her husband.
She and Dern married in 1960 and had two daughters, Diane and Laura. Diane tragically drowned at 18 months, a loss that profoundly shaped Ladd’s life. Although the couple divorced in 1969 after nearly a decade together, they maintained mutual respect for each other’s artistry. Reflecting on their marriage decades later, Ladd said, “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 went on to gain widespread acclaim in Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, playing the sharp-tongued Flo. The performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, with the film later inspiring the popular CBS sitcom Alice. Ladd also earned Oscar nominations for David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990), and Rambling Rose (1991), appearing alongside her daughter Laura Dern in both films. The mother-daughter duo went on to share the screen in Citizen Ruth (1996), The Siege at Ruby Ridge, Inland Empire (2006), and HBO’s Enlightened.
Ladd also appeared in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), 28 Days (2000), Joy (2015), and Gigi & Nate (2022). On television, she appeared in such shows as Kingdom Hospital, Chesapeake Shores, and Young Sheldon, continuing to work well into her late 80s.
Beyond her film career, Ladd also wrote three books — Spiraling Through the School of Life: A Mental, Physical and Spiritual Discovery (2006) and A Bad Afternoon for a Piece of Cake (2016). After Ladd was diagnosed in 2018 with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a life-threatening lung disease, the candid conversations that took place between Ladd and Dern became the foundation for their joint 2023 memoir Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding).
Ladd was married three times; after her marriage to Bruce Dern ended, she wed William A. Shea Jr. in 1969, and in 1999 married Robert Charles Hunter, who passed away in July 2025 at the age of 77.
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