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This Academy Award-nominated performer Diane Ladd left us 89 years old.

The actress, with filmography featured Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, passed away at home in Ojai, California. Her passing was announced via an announcement shared by her child, award-winning actress Laura Dern.

Laura Dern, who starred with her mom in several movies including Wild at Heart, called her “my incredible hero and my precious gift as a mother”, stating that she was at her bedside during her final moments.

“She was an exceptional daughter, mother, grandmother, performer, creative and empathetic spirit that seemed almost dreamlike,” she stated. “We were lucky to have her. She is now with the angels.”

Early Career and Major Success

Ladd’s early career saw minor parts on television series such as Perry Mason and that decade had her appearing with actor Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.

That very year, the year 1974, she appeared with actress Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese’s celebrated dramatic comedy the movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Her acting brought Ladd an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actress.

Later Decades

In the 1980s, she appeared in crime thriller Black Widow as well as funny follow-up National Lampoon’s holiday comedy and also took part in the show Alice, a television series inspired by her earlier movie.

During the next ten years, she received another best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her performance in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, a cult classic where she played the parent of her actual daughter the character played by Dern. A year later she obtained an additional nod for her acting in the film Rambling Rose which included Dern.

“This movie that Princess Diana chose as her absolutely favorite, and she brought me and Laura to England for a royal premiere and an event in our honor,” Ladd recalled of Rambling Rose. “She sat with us, grasping our hands, and crying, watching us perform.”

The 1990s featured performances in humorous films The Cemetery Club joining her again with Ellen Burstyn, the movie Primary Colors, a political comedy, with John Travolta and the film by Alexander Payne the movie Citizen Ruth where she acted as Laura Dern’s mom another time. The decade also earned her TV award nominations for roles on Dr Quinn, Grace Under Fire plus Touched by an Angel.

Working with Laura Dern

She continued to star with Laura Dern in comedy drama Daddy and Them, David Lynch’s Inland Empire, a surreal film and White’s dark comedy series the program Enlightened. She additionally starred alongside actress Sandra Bullock in the film 28 Days, Anthony Hopkins in The World’s Fastest Indian, a film and Jennifer Lawrence in Joy.

Subsequent TV appearances included Ray Donovan, a drama plus Young Sheldon.

Filmmaking Ventures

She also authored and helmed the comedy Mrs Munck featuring Diane Ladd and former husband actor Bruce Dern. “Bruce is a great actor,” she noted. “It was a privilege to guide him on a project. In fact, I’m the only woman in recorded history who directed her former husband. I make a joke: ‘I advise females, should you desire retribution, helm a movie with your ex.’ But I’m only kidding.”

Family Ties

She happened to be a family member of the great Tennessee Williams, who she referred to as “a major inspiration in my life”.

In 2018, doctors misdiagnosed Ladd with lung disease and informed her life expectancy was six months but she regained full health once her daughter moved her to a different hospital.

“Should you harness your suffering and not let it back up similar to a wound, instead apply it to investigate, to illuminate the way for personal and collective growth, then you are winning,” Ladd expressed.