Diane Ladd, a Golden Globe-winning actress best known for her role in the sitcom Alice, has passed away following a battle with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. She was 89 years old.
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In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Ladd’s daughter and Jurassic Park star Laura Dern confirmed the news.
“My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother, Diane Ladd, passed with me beside her this morning at her home in Ojai, Ca.,” Dern shared. “She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist, and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created.”
Dern went on to add, “We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.”
Along with her Golden Globe, Diane Ladd earned three Oscar nominations for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Wild at Heart, and Rambling Rose. She also earned a BAFTA for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and an Independent Spirit Award for Rambling Rose.
Her daughter co-starred with her in both Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose, receiving an Oscar nomination for the latter. This made Dern and Ladd one of only two parent-child duos to receive Academy Award nominations for the same film.
The other parent-child duo to earn such an achievement was Henry Fonda and Jane Fonda for their 1981 film On Golden Pond.
Diane Ladd Once Revealed that a Scene From Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore Was Improvised
During a 2014 interview, Diana Ladd said she improved for one scene in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
“The scene where we’re sitting outside with the sun on our face, that was improvised,” she recalled. “My father’s name was Preston Paul. So when I said, ‘My daddy’s P.P., and don’t call me P.P., because I’m all your-in,’ that was a line he used to say that I threw into the movie. So a lot of things like that, Marty let us bring to the table.”
The role was a massive success for Ladd, with even famed movie critic Roger Ebert offering praise. “The movie’s filled with brilliantly done individual scenes,” he wrote in his review of the film. “Alice, for example, has a run-in with a fellow waitress with an inspired vocabulary [Ladd]. They fall into a friendship and have a frank and honest conversation one day while sunbathing. The scene works perfectly.”