{"id":161817,"date":"2025-11-04T06:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T06:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/161817\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T06:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T06:08:09","slug":"oscar-nominated-actor-and-laura-derns-mother-diane-ladd-dies-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/161817\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar-nominated actor and Laura Dern\u2019s mother Diane Ladd dies \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Oscar-nominated actor Diane Ladd has died at the age of 89.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The actor, whose credits included Alice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore, Chinatown and National Lampoon\u2019s Christmas Vacation, died at her home in Ojai, California. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The news was announced in a statement shared by her daughter, Oscar-winning actor Laura Dern.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Dern, who starred with her mother in a number of films including Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose, called her \u201cmy amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother\u201d, writing that she was at her bedside as she died.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cShe was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created,\u201d she wrote. We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ladd\u2019s early career saw small roles in TV shows such as Perry Mason, The Fugitive and Gunsmoke while the 1970s saw her starring alongside Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In the same year, 1974, she shared the screen with Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese\u2019s acclaimed comedy drama Alice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore. The performance landed Ladd her first Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In the 1980s, she appeared in crime thriller Black Widow and comedy sequel National Lampoon\u2019s Christmas Vacation while also joining Alice, a sitcom based on Alice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Diane Ladd, Laura Dern and Bruce Dern at the Los Angeles Premiere Wild in 2014. Photograph: Barry King\/ FilmMagic\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/7LEQX7RH6FD6BNF7ZWMIGOH5C4.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"534\"\/>Diane Ladd, Laura Dern and Bruce Dern at the Los Angeles Premiere Wild in 2014. Photograph: Barry King\/ FilmMagic <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In the following decade, she received another best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her role in David Lynch\u2019s Wild at Heart where she played the mother of her real-life daughter Dern\u2019s character. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The following year she received another nomination for her role in Rambling Rose which also starred Dern.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThis was the picture that the late Princess Diana chose as her absolutely favourite, and she flew Laura and I to London for a royal premiere and a party in our honour,\u201d Ladd said of Rambling Rose in a later interview. \u201cAnd she sat between us, holding both our hands, and crying, watching us perform.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The 1990s also saw roles in comedy Cemetery Club reuniting her with Burstyn, Primary Colors, a political comedy, with John Travolta and Alexander Payne\u2019s Citizen Ruth where she played Dern\u2019s mother again. The decade also saw her score Emmy nominations for work in Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, Grace Under Fire and Touched by an Angel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She continued to star with her daughter in comedy drama Daddy and Them, David Lynch\u2019s Inland Empire and Mike White\u2019s dark comedy series Enlightened. She also appeared alongside Sandra Bullock in 28 Days, Anthony Hopkins in The World\u2019s Fastest Indian and Jennifer Lawrence in Joy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Her later TV roles included Ray Donovan and Young Sheldon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ladd also wrote and directed the comedy film Mrs Munck which starred herself and ex-husband Bruce Dern. \u201cBruce is a great actor,\u201d she said in an interview. \u201cI\u2019m privileged to have directed him in a movie. In fact, I\u2019m the only woman in history to direct her ex-husband. I make a joke: \u2018I say ladies, if you want revenge, direct your ex-husband.\u2019 But I\u2019m only kidding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/film\/2022\/06\/13\/laura-dern-those-boys-made-all-the-rules-and-when-they-enter-the-room-we-are-dealing-with-bullies\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Laura Dern: \u2018Those boys made all the rules. And when they enter the room, we are dealing with bullies\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ladd was also the third cousin of Tennessee Williams, who she called \u201ca great influence on my life\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In 2018, Ladd was misdiagnosed with lung disease and told she had just six months to live but made a full recovery after her daughter transferred her to a different hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIf you can take your pain and not let it back up like a sore or something, instead use it to explore, to make the path clearer for yourself and others, then you are winning,\u201d Ladd said in 2023. &#8211; The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar-nominated actor Diane Ladd has died at the age of 89. The actor, whose credits included Alice Doesn\u2019t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,9603,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-161817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-laura-dern","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115489938353858294","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}