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This award-nominated actress Diane Ladd, a Hollywood veteran left us aged 89.

The star, with roles featured National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, passed away at home at her Ojai, California home. The news was shared via an announcement from her offspring, Academy Award-winning star Laura Dern, her daughter.

Laura Dern, who starred with Diane Ladd in various films such as Rambling Rose, referred to her as “my incredible hero and my profound gift as a mother”, writing that she was present when she passed.

“She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, performer, creative and compassionate soul that felt like a dream come true,” she stated. “We were fortunate to know her. She is flying with her angels now.”

Beginnings and Breakthrough

Ladd’s early career saw supporting roles in TV shows such as Perry Mason while that decade had her appearing alongside actor Jack Nicholson in the film Chinatown.

In the same year, 1974, she performed with Ellen Burstyn in the Martin Scorsese acclaimed film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Her role brought Ladd an Academy Award nomination in the supporting actress category.

1980s and Beyond

Throughout the 1980s, she starred in crime thriller the movie Black Widow as well as comedy sequel Christmas Vacation and appeared on Alice, a television series based on the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

In the subsequent decade, she received another supporting actress Academy Award nomination for her performance in the David Lynch film the movie Wild at Heart where she played the mother of her actual daughter the character played by Dern. The following year she obtained an additional nod for her role in Rambling Rose, another movie which included her daughter.

“This movie that Princess Diana chose as her absolutely favorite, and she invited Laura and I to England for a special screening and a party in our honor,” Ladd recalled of Rambling Rose. “She sat with us, taking our hands, with tears, watching us perform.”

The nineties also saw roles in humorous films The Cemetery Club bringing her back with Ellen Burstyn, the movie Primary Colors, a political comedy, featuring John Travolta and Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth, a dark comedy in which she portrayed Dern’s mother another time. Those years also saw her score TV award nominations for work on Dr Quinn, the show Grace Under Fire and Touched by an Angel, a drama.

Working with Laura Dern

She persisted in performing alongside her daughter in comedy drama Daddy and Them, Lynch’s the movie Inland Empire and White’s comedy-drama series Enlightened, a TV series. She additionally starred alongside Sandra Bullock, a star in 28 Days, a movie, Anthony Hopkins, a legend in that movie and Jennifer Lawrence in Joy.

Her later TV roles featured Ray Donovan and Young Sheldon.

Filmmaking Ventures

Ladd also wrote and helmed the humorous movie Mrs Munck that included her and ex-husband Bruce Dern, an actor. “Bruce is a great actor,” she noted. “I’m privileged to have directed him in a film. In fact, I’m the only woman in recorded history who directed her former husband. I often joke: ‘I say ladies, should you desire retribution, direct your ex-husband.’ However, I’m joking.”

Personal Life

She happened to be a family member of Tennessee Williams, whom she described as “a major inspiration on my life”.

During 2018, she received an incorrect diagnosis with a pulmonary condition and informed she had just six months to live but made a full recovery once her daughter moved her to a different hospital.

“If you can take your pain and avoid letting it accumulate like an injury, instead apply it to investigate, to illuminate the way for yourself and others, then you are winning,” Ladd said.