From Newsgroup: alt.obituaries
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/movies/diane-ladd-dead.html
Diane Ladd, Versatile Film Actress, Is Dead at 89
She was a three-time Oscar contender playing strikingly different
characters, in once case starring alongside her daughter and fellow
nominee, Laura Dern.
By Anita Gates
Nov. 3, 2025
Diane Ladd, the Mississippi-born film actress who shaped her air of eccentricity and steely determination into wildly different characters
over a career of more than six decades, died on Monday in Ojai, Calif. She
was 89.
Her death was confirmed in a statement by her daughter, the actress Laura Dern. It did not cite a cause.
Ms. Ladd, who was a respected actress more than a world-famous movie star, never won an Academy Award, but she was nominated three times, in roles
that displayed her range.
She was Flo, the sassy and foulmouthed but deeply compassionate Southern waitress, in Martin ScorseserCOs rCLAlice DoesnrCOt Live Here AnymorerCY (1974);
Marietta Fortune, a seductive, malevolent former beauty queen who hires a
hit man to kill her daughterrCOs boyfriend, in David LynchrCOs rCLWild at HeartrCY
(1990); and a quietly noble Mississippi housewife who defends the familyrCOs indiscreet young maid in Martha CoolidgerCOs rCLRambling RoserCY (1991).
That final nomination brought with it the distinction of being the first
time in academy history that a real-life mother and daughter (Ms. Ladd and
Ms. Dern) had been nominated for the same picture rCo Ms. Ladd for best supporting actress and Ms. Dern for best actress.
rCLAlice DoesnrCOt Live Here AnymorerCY inspired the hit TV show rCLAlice,rCY on
which Polly Holliday played the role of Flo. In 1980, when Ms. Holliday
(who died in September) left to star in a spinoff series, rCLFlo,rCY Ms. Ladd joined the cast for a time as another wisecracking Southern waitress, this
one named Isabelle (Belle) Dupree.
She made memorable appearances in dozens of films, including rCLChinatownrCY (1974), as a Los Angeles prostitute posing as a society matron; rCLGhosts of MississippirCY (1996), as the soign|-e widow of a Southern judge who would rather play bridge than examine her staterCOs racist past; rCLPrimary ColorsrCY
(1998), as the brash mother of a president modeled after Bill Clinton; and
the biographical drama rCLJoyrCY (2015), as the relentlessly supportive grandmother of Joy Mangano, a plucky inventor and entrepreneur played by Jennifer Lawrence.
Rose Diane Ladner was born on Nov. 29, 1935, in Meridian, Miss., the only child of Preston Paul Ladner, a country veterinarian, and Mary Bernadette (Anderson) Ladner Garey. Ms. Ladd sometimes reported that she had been
born in Rilberton, Miss., a small town that she said was wiped out in a hurricane.
After graduating from high school, she headed for New Orleans, a move her parents allowed only on the condition that she enroll in a finishing
school there. Her real goal was theater. While Ms. Ladd was appearing in a play at the Gallery Circle Theater in the French Quarter in 1953, an
associate of the actor John Carradine discovered her and cast her as the
child bride Pearl in the touring company of rCLTobacco Road,rCY in which Mr. Carradine was starring.
Afterward, Ms. Ladd moved to New York City on her own and took various
jobs, among them modeling, handing out product samples at BloomingdalerCOs
and working as a chorus girl in a three-month stint at the Copacabana nightclub. Her first television roles, in the late 1950s, were guest appearances on series like rCLThe Walter Winchell FilerCY and rCLThe Naked City.rCY
In 1959, Ms. Ladd made her Off Broadway debut in a revival of Tennessee WilliamsrCOs rCLOrpheus Descending.rCY Her performance caught the attention of The New York Times, whose review praised her as rCLa bright, blonde young ladyrCY who rCLdoes a superb job of depicting Carol Cutrere, a high-strung, reckless rCylewd vagrantrCO who was once a benign reformer.rCY
(The review also identified Ms. Ladd as rCLa kin of Mr. Williams,rCY adding, rCLBoth are descended from the poet Sidney Lanier.rCY)
Ms. Ladd met her first husband, Bruce Dern, when he joined the cast of
that production.
Movies came next. Her first credited film role was in Roger CormanrCOs rCLThe Wild AngelsrCY (1966), a youth-oriented motorcycle drama that also featured Peter Fonda and Mr. Dern.
In a Times interview alongside Ms. Dern in 2023, Ms. Ladd said, rCLI didnrCOt want you to go into acting.rCY But she played her daughterrCOs on-screen mother at least five times, most recently in rCLEnlightenedrCY (2011-13), HBOrCOs acclaimed but short-lived series about a woman who takes her New Age rehab experience too much to heart.
As for theater, which she called her first love, Ms. Ladd made it to
Broadway twice, but briefly. rCLCarry Me Back to Morningside HeightsrCY (1968), written by Robert Alan Arthur and directed by Sidney Poitier, ran
for only seven performances. rCLA Texas Trilogy: Lu Ann Hampton Laverty OberlanderrCY (1976), written by Preston Jones, closed after a month but earned her a Drama Desk Award for best actress in a play.
Ms. Ladd developed something of a reputation as an earnest critic of the entertainment industry. At various events, she spoke out against the greed
of Hollywood studios and Broadway producers, American film productions
that went to Canada, and the industryrCOs failings in general. In 1976, she told The Times, rCLPeople treat actors worse than they treat children.rCY
Even in her book rCLSpiraling Through the School of LiferCY (2006), she couldnrCOt help observing, rCLSome folks are so corrupt that hell wouldnrCOt even have them.rCY
rCLSpiralingrCY was a combination of memoir and self-help manual that focused on spirituality, healing, past lives, opportunity, forgiveness and
redemption. Ms. Ladd had unconventional beliefs, and said that the ghost
of Martha Mitchell, the outspoken wife of the former attorney general and convicted Watergate conspirator John N. Mitchell, had appeared to her. Ms. Ladd then spent decades attempting to garner support for a biopic of Ms. Mitchell.
Ms. LaddrCOs last film role was as the widow of an Air Force veteran of the Vietnam War in the drama rCLThe Last Full Measure.rCY She was also a regular on the Hallmark Channel series rCLChesapeake ShoresrCY (2016-17).
Ms. Ladd was also the author of rCLA Bad Afternoon for a Piece of Cake,rCY a 2016 short story collection. She took on film directing once, with the
revenge drama rCLMrs. MunckrCY (1996), in which she also starred alongside Shelley Winters, Kelly Preston and Mr. Dern.
She and Mr. Dern, who married in 1960 and divorced in 1969, had two
daughters. Five years before Laura Dern was born, their first child, Diane Elizabeth Dern, died in a swimming pool accident at the age of 18 months.
Ms. LaddrCOs second marriage, to William A. Shea Jr., a Wall Street
financier, also ended in divorce. In 1999, she married Robert Charles
Hunter, a former chief executive of PepsiCo Food Systems, whom she met
through a mutual friend at a spiritual retreat in Arizona. He died in
July.
In addition to Ms. Dern, Ms. LaddrCOs survivors include two grandchildren.
At a 2016 book signing, Ms. Ladd was asked for advice on succeeding in
show business. rCLNothingrCOs going to be handed to you,rCY she said, suggesting
that in her 80s she had no intention of mellowing. rCLYou have to fight like
a dirty rotten dog.rCY
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