Hollywood has lost a legend.
Oscar nominated actress Diane Ladd died at her home in Ojai, Calif., daughter Laura Dern shared Nov. 3. She was 89.
“My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother passed with me beside her this morning,” Laura said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “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.”
Originally from Mississippi, Diane began acting at a young age before earning her first Oscar nomination at age 39 for 1974's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. She earned two more nominations over the course of her 50-plus year career—for Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose—as well as a Golden Globe Award for her sitcom Alice.
As her acting career continued, she welcomed Laura and daughter Diane Elizabeth Dern, who died at 18 months old in 1962, with then-husband Bruce Dern. The pair divorced in 1969 and, later that year, she married her second husband William A. Shea Jr., whom she spent seven years with. She was then married to husband Robert Charles Hunter from 1999 until his death on July 31, 2025.
Diane often had the opportunity to share the screen with Laura, as she began appearing in several of her mother's films when she was a child. Most recently, the mother-daughter duo had the chance to share the spotlight once more in the Mike White-produced TV show Enlightened from 2011 to 2013, in which Diane played the onscreen mom of Laura's character.
However, in recent years, Diane’s health had taken a turn. In 2018, she shared she had been diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease she developed after unknowingly being exposed to pesticides sprayed in her neighborhood. Given just three to six months to live, she and her daughter were inspired to work together once more to preserve their memories and co-wrote their book titled Honey, Baby, Mine.
"We told each other everything," Laura said on Today in 2023. "She said that she really felt that finally releasing some of the grief and challenges and heartbreak of her life, as well as us laughing over absurd fights and silly things we have been through, was in fact, so healing physically and emotionally."
And for Laura, 58, it was an opportunity to see her mom in another light.
"I was shocked at how little I'd asked her," Laura noted. "Even the simple stuff. I've been raised by an actor, I worked alongside my mother, yet, I never asked, 'Why did you want to become an actress from this tiny town in Mississippi?'"
Ultimately, putting it all out in the open allowed them to spend Diane's last years without regret of the unsaid.
"She said, 'I'm not afraid of it,'" Laura explained of her mom's willingness to talk about death. "She was afraid of leaving me, she was afraid of not watching her grandchildren grow, she still has that fear, but really I think she's embraced so much by talking about it. She said, 'Now, if they hadn't told me that I might be dying, I may not have said it all.'"
(E! and Today are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)