Laura Dern announced the death of her mother, Hollywood icon Diane Ladd, at age 89.
“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, 58, wrote in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter on Monday, November 3.
The statement continued, “She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created. We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.”
A cause of death was not immediately revealed.
Ladd shared Laura with Bruce Dern, to whom she was married from 1960 to 1969. The former couple also shared a daughter named Diane, who died at 18 months after a drowning accident in 1962.
The Oscar-nominated actress was best known for roles in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), Wild at Heart (1990) and Rambling Rose (1991). Additionally, Ladd starred in the 1980 TV series Alice, Enlightened from 2011 to 2013 and Chesapeake Shores from 2016 to 2022.
Laura had been open about her mother’s health over the years, including revealing Ladd had been given six months to live in 2019 following an issue with her lungs.
“She was exposed to pesticides being sprayed in the neighborhood and was not notified and realized that she had scarring on her lungs,” Laura said during a Today appearance in April 2023 while chatting with host Hoda Kotb at the time. “And they said, ‘If you can get her walking, expand her lung capacity, maybe it will help.’”
Laura explained that she and her mother would regularly take walks to help her recover from the condition. The Marriage Story actress recorded the conversations during their walks so that her kids, Ellery, 24, and Jaya, 20, could listen to the candid chats between their mom and grandmother.
“I was shocked at how little I’d asked her,” Laura said. “The hard stuff, because I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t want to bring it up and hurt her.’ But even the simple stuff. I’ve been raised by an actor, I’ve worked alongside my mother, and yet I’d never asked, ‘Why did you want to become an actress? … What was the first movie that ever inspired you? What’s your favorite color?’”
The mother-daughter duo ended up writing a book together called Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding) after Ladd survived the health scare.
“It was the beginning of 2019 that we started these walks, and they said, ‘Your mother will never be here in six months,’” Laura continued. “But from walking and not believing, as my mom said to [Kotb], ‘They say they’re practicing medicine, so I’m not going to believe one doctor, I’m going to go to several and I’m going to keep fighting with alternative modalities and my daughter and I’s love for each other.’”
Ladd told People in January 2023 that “all the deep listening filled us with love, and it was very healing.”
“As parents, we do not tell our children all of our truths because we want to be loved and respected,” Ladd told the outlet of what she learned most from the walks. “So honestly, we lie a little. What I discovered is that there were things I hadn’t told her that I should have because I felt it would make her feel guilty or burdened. Instead, it was a release for her.”
