She Had Comedic, Dramatic Roles Over 6 Decades

Diane Ladd, a three-time Academy Award nominee whose roles over more than six decades included the brash waitress in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and the protective mother in Wild at Heart, has died. She was 89. Her death was announced Monday by Laura Dern, who issued a statement saying her mother had died at her home in Ojai, California, with Dern at her side. Dern, who called Ladd her "amazing hero" and "profound gift of a mother," did not immediately cite a cause of death, the AP reports.

The Mississippi-born Ladd was known for what the Washington Post describes as "her Southern lilt, helmet of flaxen hair and expressive face." A gifted comic and dramatic performer, Ladd had a long career in television and onstage before breaking through in films in Martin Scorsese's 1974 release Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. She earned an Oscar nomination for supporting actor for her turn as the acerbic, straight-talking Flo. She appeared in dozens of movies over the following decades, including Chinatown, Primary Colors, and two movies for which she received best supporting nods: Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose.

Early in her career, Ladd spent a year in the cast of the CBS soap opera The Secret Storm. Other TV credits in the 1950s and '60s, per People, included Naked City, Perry Mason, and Mr. Novak. Recently, she appeared in the Hallmark Channel series Chesapeake Shores. Offstage, she wrote spiritual advice books and short stories, per the Post. "Most actors have healing powers," Ladd once said, "because they're used to sending their energy across the footlights."