🔗 Share this article

This Oscar-nominated actor Diane Ladd has died 89 years old.

This actress, whose credits spanned National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, left this world in her residence in Ojai, California. Her passing was revealed via an announcement from her daughter, award-winning actress Laura Dern.

Laura Dern, who starred with her mother in a number of films including Rambling Rose, called her “my amazing hero as well as my precious gift being my mom”, writing that she was present as she died.

“She was the most wonderful grandmother, mother, daughter, performer, creative along with compassionate soul that seemed almost dreamlike,” she wrote. “We were lucky to have her. She is flying with her angels now.”

Beginnings and Rise to Fame

The start of her career featured small roles on television series including Gunsmoke while the seventies featured her performing with the legendary Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.

During that year, 1974, she performed with actress Ellen Burstyn in Scorsese’s celebrated dramatic comedy Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, a classic. Her acting earned Ladd an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actress.

Subsequent Years

In the 1980s, she starred in crime thriller the movie Black Widow and funny follow-up Christmas Vacation and appeared on the show Alice, a comedy program inspired by Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

In the following decade, she received another best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her part in Lynch’s Wild at Heart, a cult classic where she played the mom of her real-life daughter Dern’s character. The following year she obtained a further nomination for her acting in the film Rambling Rose that also featured Laura Dern.

“This was the film that the late Princess Diana chose as her absolutely favorite, and she flew me and Laura to London for a royal premiere and a celebration for us,” Ladd recalled of Rambling Rose. “She sat with us, taking our hands, and crying, viewing our performance.”

The nineties also saw roles in the comedy Cemetery Club, a film bringing her back with Burstyn, Primary Colors, a political story, a comedy about politics, with John Travolta and the film by Alexander Payne Citizen Ruth in which she portrayed the mother of Dern once more. The decade also brought her TV award nominations for work in Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, Grace Under Fire, a sitcom and Touched by an Angel, a drama.

Partnerships with Her Daughter

She continued to star with her daughter in dramatic comedies Daddy and Them, Lynch’s Inland Empire and the series by Mike White comedy-drama series Enlightened. She was also seen alongside Sandra Bullock in 28 Days, a movie, Anthony Hopkins in The World’s Fastest Indian, a film and Jennifer Lawrence in the film Joy.

Her later TV roles included Ray Donovan, a drama plus Young Sheldon.

Behind the Camera

Ladd also wrote and directed the humorous movie Mrs Munck that included her and former husband Bruce Dern. “Bruce is an excellent performer,” she mentioned. “It was a privilege to guide him on a project. Actually, I am the sole female in recorded history to direct her ex-husband. I make a joke: ‘I tell women, if you seek payback, guide your former spouse.’ But I’m only kidding.”

Personal Life

She was additionally a relative of Tennessee Williams, whom she described as “a great influence on my life”.

In 2018, she received an incorrect diagnosis with a pulmonary condition and told her life expectancy was six months but made a full recovery when her daughter moved her to a different hospital.

“When you use your pain and prevent it from festering like a sore or something, rather utilize it to explore, to make the path clearer for yourself and others, then you are triumphing,” Ladd remarked.