Diane Ladd RIP
By 
Let’s not let the death of Darth Cheney eclipse the passing of an American treasure…
Diane Ladd, Oscar-nominated actress, died at the age of 89 on November 3, her daughter Laura Dern confirmed in a statement. “My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother passed with me beside her this morning at her home in Ojai, California,” Dern shared with Vulture. “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.” Ladd was nominated for three Best Support Actress Oscars throughout her life, for roles in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Wild at Heart, and Rambling Rose. Dern co-starred with Ladd in all three films and earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination herself with Rambling Rose. It was the first time that both a mother and a daughter were nominated for Academy Awards for the same film.
I have never been much of a Lynch guy and so was never particularly moved by Wild at Heart… my memories of Ladd come from Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and also from her appearance in Chinatown, which is brief but appropriately sets the stage for the dark journey we’re about to undertake… Unlike some other actresses of her generation she worked consistently until about three years ago, with no really substantial gaps apart from a three year sabbatical in the late 2000s, and although this included a fair amount of “guest star of the week” turns in shows like In the Heat of the Night, ER, Dr. Quinn et al, I generally found her presence in these to be quite welcome. One of her earliest appearances was in a 1963 episode of Perry Mason, which I should try to track down.
Photo Credit: By Harry Chase, Los Angeles Times – https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz0002pwqj, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=177828116