Reese Witherspoon honored friend Laura Dern’s late mom, Diane Ladd, with a touching tribute.
“Oh Diane ! What a beautiful spirit, filled with light, childlike creativity and boundless ideas. ✨,” Witherspoon, 49, wrote via Instagram alongside several photos of Ladd. “A born & bred storyteller from Mississippi, your golden voice made every small moment feel like a remembered dream.”
The post included a solo shot of Ladd enjoying the sunshine, plus photos of the Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore actress posing with her daughter. An additional photo showed Witherspoon, Ladd and Dern, 58, spending quality time together. The Legally Blonde went on to share that she looked to Ladd as an additional mother figure.
“You were my inspiration and my Other Mother. 💗,” she continued. “May all your angels welcome you home into a place of love & light.✨💕 Til we meet again.”
Witherspoon and Dern have been friends since they worked together on the 2014 movie Wild. Their friendship has grown stronger over the years as the women have continued to collaborate, especially after starring in the series Big Little Lies alongside Nicole Kidman.
Dern confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Ladd died on Monday, November 3.
“My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother, Diane Ladd, passed with me beside her this morning, at her home in Ojai, [California],” the Jurassic Park actress wrote in a statement. “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.”
A cause of death was not revealed.
Ladd was best known for her film roles in 1974’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 1990’s Wild at Heart and 1991’s Rambling Rose. All three of those films earned Ladd Oscar nominations. Her final films were Gigi & Nate and Isle of Hope, which were both released in 2022.
In addition to her work on the silver screen, Ladd starred in the 1980 TV series Alice, Enlightened from 2011 to 2013 and Hallmark’s Chesapeake Shores from 2016 to 2022.
Laura’s father, Bruce Dern, also paid tribute to Ladd, to whom he was married from 1960 to 1969. (In addition to Laura, Bruce and Ladd shared a daughter named Diane, who died at 18 months after a drowning accident in 1962.)
“Diane was a tremendous actress and I feel like, a bit of a ‘hidden treasure’ until she ran into David Lynch,” Bruce, 89, said in a statement to Us Weekly on Monday. “When he cast her as Laura‘s mom in Wild at Heart it felt like the world then really understood her brilliance. She was a great value as a decades-long board member of SAG, giving a real actress’ point of view.”
Bruce added that his ex-wife “lived a good life.”
“She saw everything the way it was. She was a great teammate to her fellow actors. She was funny, clever, gracious,” he continued. “But most importantly to me, she was a wonderful mother to our incredible wunderkind daughter. And for that I will be forever grateful to her.”
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