Sad news to report today as it’s been announced that Diane Ladd is dead at the age of 89. The Academy Award-nominated actress is best known for her roles in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, and Martha Coolidge’s Rambling Rose.
Her daughter, Laura Dern, provided a statement to THR. “My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother passed with me beside her this morning at her home in Ojai, California,” she said. “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.“
Although Ladd was already an established actress for well over a decade, it was her role as Flo, the sharp-tongued waitress at Mel and Ruby’s Cafe in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, that launched her career to a new level. Her lines, such as “Kiss me where the sun don’t shine,” had audiences howling. The role earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film also spawned a sitcom, Alice, and although Polly Holliday took on the role of Flo, Ladd did join the cast for seasons 4 and 5 as a new character.
Ladd earned another Oscar nomination for Wild at Heart as the mother of Laura Dern’s character. Director David Lynch later recalled that Ladd’s ad-lib spirit made it very difficult to stick to the script. “When she was in her first scene, she was miles away from the text that I’d written. She got the spirit of the scene perfectly, but she didn’t re-create a single word,” he said. “So I took her aside and after that we worked very well together. She was bad at sticking to the dialogue, but she really loved to be seized by an emotion and to be carried away by it. It was quite something to contain all that energy.“
She reunited with her daughter once again in Rambling Rose, with both actresses landing Oscar nominations.
Ladd can also be seen in movies such as White Lightning, Chinatown, Embryo, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Black Widow, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Carnosaur, 28 Days, Inland Empire, Joy, and more. She also frequently appeared on the small screen in TV shows such as Gunsmoke, The Love Boat, L.A. Law, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Grace Under Fire, ER, Enlightened, Ray Donovan, Young Sheldon, and others.
Our thoughts and condolences go out to Ladd’s family and friends. She will be missed.
