Diane Ladd, a three-time Academy Award nominee known for her fierce wit, emotional depth and commanding presence in films such as “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and “Wild at Heart,” has died. She was 89.
Ladd’s death was announced Monday by her daughter, actor Laura Dern, who said her mother died at home in Ojai, California, with her by her side. Dern called Ladd her “amazing hero” and a “profound gift of a mother,” but did not share a cause of death.
“She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created,” Dern said in a statement. “We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.”
List of Movies, TV Shows Featuring Diane Ladd
A versatile comic and dramatic performer, Ladd built a wide-ranging career in television, film and on stage before emerging as a major screen presence in Martin Scorsese’s 1974 drama Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Her sharp, salty performance as Flo, a tough-talking waitress and confidant to Ellen Burstyn’s title character, earned her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.
Entertainment publicist Danny Deraney said on X, "God speed Diane Ladd. One of the most versatile actors we have ever seen, and do it so well, for so long. Her smack as Flo in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is such an epic performance."
Ladd went on to appear in dozens of films over the next five decades, including Chinatown, Primary Colors, and two additional Oscar-nominated turns in Wild at Heart (1990) and Rambling Rose (1991). The latter two co-starred her daughter, making the pair one of Hollywood’s rare mother-daughter duos to receive Academy Award nominations for the same film.
She also had a prolific television career, with roles in ER, Touched by an Angel, and Alice, the sitcom spinoff of Scorsese’s film.
Born Rose Diane Ladner in Laurel, Mississippi, Ladd showed an early interest in performing. In her 2006 memoir, Spiraling Through the School of Life, she recalled her great-grandmother predicting that she would one day stand “in front of a screen” and “command” audiences. Ladd began acting professionally in the 1950s, appearing on television in shows such as Perry Mason, Gunsmoke and The Big Valley.
By the mid-1970s, her breakout in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore had transformed her career. She told The New York Times then that she had stopped questioning her own talent. “Now I don’t say that,” she said. “I can do Shakespeare, Ibsen, English accents, Irish accents, no accent, stand on my head, tap dance, sing, look 17 or look 70.”
In David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, which won the Palme d’Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, Ladd gave one of her most memorable performances as Marietta, a deranged mother desperate to keep her daughter (Dern) away from her ex-con lover, played by Nicolas Cage. She and Lynch worked closely to shape Marietta’s surreal style.
“One day, the script said that Marietta gets in bed, curls up with her baby dog, and is sucking her thumb,” Ladd told Vulture in 2024. “I looked at [Lynch] and said, ‘David, I don’t want to do that.’ He said, ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I want to put on a long satin nightgown, stand in the middle of the bed holding a martini and drinking it, and sway to the old music in my head.’ He said OK, I did it, and he loved it.”
Diane Ladd's Family and Marriages: What to Know
Ladd’s life was also deeply entwined with the arts through family. Her first husband, actor Bruce Dern, was an Oscar nominee, and her daughter Laura became an Academy Award-winning actor. Ladd was also distantly related to playwright Tennessee Williams.
She married three times and was divorced twice — from Dern and from William A. Shea Jr. Her third marriage, to author and former PepsiCo executive Robert Charles Hunter, lasted from 1999 until his death in August.
Bruce Dern said in a statement to Newsweek, “Diane was a tremendous actress and I feel like, a bit of a ‘hidden treasure’ until she ran into David Lynch. When he cast her as Laura‘s mom in Wild at Heart it felt like the world then really understood her brilliance. She was a great value as a decades long board member of SAG, giving a real actress’ point of view. She lived a good life. She saw everything the way it was. She was a great teammate to her fellow actors. She was funny, clever, gracious. But most importantly to me, she was a wonderful mother to our incredible wunderkind daughter. And for that I will be forever grateful to her.”
In a 1976 interview with The New York Times, Ladd reflected on love and independence after her second divorce. “I come from the South and from a man, my father, who gave me rocking-chair love,” she said. “My people pass love around, and why I selected two men who needed someone to give love and didn’t know how to give it ... I hope I won’t repeat that again.”
Ladd continued acting well into her 80s, often alongside her daughter, and remained a beloved figure in Hollywood for her humor, generosity and craft.
Movie podcaster Kevin Jacobsen wrote on X, "RIP Diane Ladd! Such a dynamic performer, jumping between warm mama bears and earnest, fragile women with that dose of theatricality I always loved. These images will stick with me forever!"
Are Diane Ladd and Cheryl Ladd Related?
Despite sharing the same last name and both finding fame in Hollywood, Diane Ladd and Cheryl Ladd are not related. Diane Ladd, an acclaimed actor and three-time Academy Award nominee, was born Rose Diane Ladner in Mississippi, while Cheryl Ladd, best known for her role as Kris Munroe on the 1970s television series Charlie’s Angels, was born Cheryl Stoppelmoor in South Dakota and later took her stage name after marrying music producer David Ladd. The two have no family connection.
This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.
Updates: 11/3/25, 6:21 p.m. ET: This article was updated with new information and remarks.
