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The award-nominated performer Diane Ladd has died 89 years old.

This actor, with filmography spanned Chinatown, left this world in her residence in California’s Ojai. The news was announced through a message from her daughter, award-winning actress her daughter Laura Dern.

Her daughter, who performed alongside her mom in a number of films including Wild at Heart, referred to her as “my incredible hero and my precious gift being my mom”, stating that she was at her bedside when she passed.

“She was the most wonderful daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and compassionate soul that felt like a dream come true,” she expressed. “We were lucky to have her. She is now with the angels.”

Initial Roles and Breakthrough

Ladd’s early career featured supporting roles in TV shows including Gunsmoke and the 1970s featured her performing next to actor Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.

In the same year, 1974, she appeared with Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese’s celebrated film the movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. The performance landed Ladd her initial Oscar nod in the supporting actress category.

1980s and Beyond

In the 1980s, she starred in the thriller the movie Black Widow plus comedy sequel National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation while also joining the show Alice, a sitcom inspired by Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

In the subsequent decade, she was given a further supporting actress Oscar nomination for her part in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart where she acted as the mom of her actual daughter Dern’s character. The following year she received an additional nod for her performance in Rambling Rose which also starred Laura Dern.

“This was the film that Princess Diana selected as her very favorite, and she flew us to the UK for a special screening and a party dedicated to us,” Ladd shared of Rambling Rose. “She sat with us, taking our hands, and weeping, watching us perform.”

The 1990s also saw roles in the comedy The Cemetery Club reuniting her with Burstyn, Primary Colors, a political comedy, featuring John Travolta and Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth where she played Dern’s mother another time. The decade also saw her score nominations for Emmy Awards for performances in the series Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, the show Grace Under Fire and Touched by an Angel, a drama.

Working with Laura Dern

She continued to star with Laura Dern in films blending humor and drama Daddy and Them, a movie, David Lynch’s Inland Empire, a surreal film and White’s comedy-drama series the program Enlightened. She also appeared with actress Sandra Bullock in 28 Days, Anthony Hopkins in The World’s Fastest Indian and Jennifer Lawrence in the film Joy.

Her more recent television parts featured the series Ray Donovan and Young Sheldon.

Filmmaking Ventures

She also authored and oversaw the comedy film Mrs Munck featuring Diane Ladd and former husband actor Bruce Dern. “Bruce is a great actor,” she noted. “I’m privileged to have directed him on a project. Actually, I am the sole female in history who directed her former husband. I make a joke: ‘I tell women, if you seek payback, guide your former spouse.’ Though I’m just teasing.”

Family Ties

She was additionally a relative of the great Tennessee Williams, whom she described as “a great influence on my life”.

In 2018, doctors misdiagnosed Ladd with a pulmonary condition and informed her life expectancy was six months but she regained full health once her daughter transferred her to a different hospital.

“If you can take your pain and prevent it from festering like an injury, instead use it to investigate, to illuminate the way for yourself and others, then you are winning,” Ladd expressed.