Who was Diane Ladd? Three-time Oscar-nominated actress passes away at 89 in California

Three-time Oscar-nominated actress, Diane Ladd, 89, who played roles in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose, died on Monday, 3 November, at her home in California's Ojai. Diane Ladd's daughter, Laura Dern, confirmed the news in a statement, where she called her mother an “amazing hero” and “profound gift of a mother".

The cause of death remains unknown.

“She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artiste and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created. We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now," PTI quoted Laura Dern, Diane Ladd’s daughter with ex-husband Bruce Dern, as saying.

Who was Diane Ladd?

Born Rose Diane Ladner in Laurel, Mississippi, on 29 November 1935, Ladd seemed destined to stand out from the start.

In her 2006 memoir, Spiraling Through the School of Life, she recalled her great-grandmother telling her that one day she would be “in front of a screen” and would “command” her own audiences.

She was married three times and divorced twice, first from Bruce Dern and then 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.

Diane Ladd began her New York stage career in 1952 with an off-Broadway production of Orpheus Descending, written by her third cousin, Tennessee Williams. During that production, she also met her first husband, Bruce Dern, as per a Reuters report.

Before starring in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, she had already built a steady television career beginning in the 1950s, when she was in her early twenties, appearing in series such as Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, and The Big Valley.

Over the course of her career, Ladd appeared in numerous acclaimed films, including Chinatown and Primary Colors. She also starred in several television series, among them ER, Touched by an Angel, and Alice, the spinoff of the movie that first brought her widespread recognition, according to ANI.

She earned her first Oscar nomination in 1974 for her role as a bold and lively waitress in Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

She later received nominations for Wild at Heart (1990), in which she played a fierce and villainous mother, and Rambling Rose (1991), in which she starred alongside her daughter Laura Dern. Their performance in Rambling Rose made history as it was the first time a real-life mother and daughter were both nominated for Oscars for the same film.

By the mid-1970s, Ladd had fulfilled that early prophecy, telling The New York Times that she no longer denied herself the right to call herself great. She mentioned, “Now I don't say that. I can do Shakespeare, Ibsen, English accents, Irish accents, no accent, stand on my head, tap dance, sing, look 17 or look 70."