Laura Dern is likely one of the most celebrated actresses of all time. Other than uncredited roles within the early 70s, she started recurrently performing in 1980, and she or he’s appeared in a wide-range of critically-acclaimed movies and widespread blockbusters, notably early hits like Blue Velvet in 1986 and Jurassic Park in 1993. Whereas Laura has been a beloved star for many years, she really has many members of the family who’ve been within the leisure trade in numerous types. Her dad and mom, Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, each labored as actors, and she or he additionally has kinfolk who’ve been in politics, very profitable businesspeople, and writers. All three actors have stars on the Hollywood Stroll Of Fame shut by one another.
Laura, who herself is a mom of two, has spoken about how completely happy she was that her dad and mom had been each entertainers in a 2014 interview with The Guardian. “My dad and mom, Dianne Ladd and Bruce Dern, are so actual; they’re so who they’re. The 70s, after I was a toddler, was their time of nice success. However there have been no cameras following you thru the market or paparazzi at your college,” she mentioned. “They wished to play sophisticated individuals they usually didn’t care about anything, just like the glam stuff.”
Sadly, Diane died on November 3, 2025. Discover out extra about each of Laura’s dad and mom right here.
Bruce Dern
Laura’s dad was married as soon as earlier than he went out with Diane. Bruce was briefly wed to Marie Daybreak Pierce from 1957 to 1959, earlier than marrying Diane in 1960. The pair’s first daughter died at 18 months outdated. By the point Laura was born in 1967, he was a longtime actor, with roles in a wide range of TV reveals, like Stoney Burke, the place he appeared in 17 episodes. He had additionally executed some film work, together with in movies like Wild River and Hush… Hush, Candy Charlotte.
For the reason that 60s, Bruce has appeared in a big selection of films the place he’s been critically acclaimed, together with 1974’s The Nice Gatsby, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination. His performances in 1978’s Coming Dwelling and 2013’s Nebraska earned him each Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. Bruce and Diana divorced in 1969 and remarried Andrea Beckett that very same 12 months!
Laura has opened up about getting nearer along with her dad as she’s gotten older. She revealed that when she was youthful, she felt like her dad was a bit not sure as a guardian in a 2013 interview with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast. “I feel he type of — as you can think about — didn’t actually know what to do with a small particular person,” she defined. She additionally joked about how a playdate’s dad confronted her over a personality her dad performed who killed John Wayne in a 2013 Vulture interview.
Awkward playdates apart, she did reveal what she realized from her dad in that interview. “To remain true to what’s best for you. Keep true to your individual voice, and don’t fear about needing to be appreciated or what anyone else thinks. Preserve your eyes by yourself paper,” she mentioned of what she picked up on as an actress.
Diane Ladd
Like Bruce, Diane had additionally established herself as an actress with a wide range of movie and TV roles within the late Nineteen Fifties and 60s earlier than Laura was born. Through the years, Diane has appeared in quite a lot of hit motion pictures like Chinatown (1974) and Nationwide Lampoon’s Christmas Trip (1989), and she or he’s obtained Oscar nominations for roles in Alice Doesn’t Dwell Right here Anymore (1974), Wild Coronary heart (1990), and Rambling Rose (1991).
Whereas Diane has been open about how she initially discouraged Laura from pursuing a profession in performing, Laura’s first two uncredited roles had been in her mother’s motion pictures Alice and 1973’s White Lightning. Regardless that Laura spent plenty of time along with her dad as a child, the actress did clarify that her mother was the first caregiver within the WTF interview. “I positively was raised by my mother and my grandma,” she mentioned. After Diane and Bruce break up, she remarried William Shea from 1969 to 1976 and Robert Hunter in 1999.
The mom-and-daughter pair co-starred within the TV collection Enlightened, which ran from 2011 to 2013. Laura mentioned that some individuals didn’t understand that they weren’t only a mom and daughter on TV however in actual life too. “I’ve had so many individuals come as much as me, not likely understanding we’re mom and daughter, and it’s superb that there are people who find themselves followers of the present who don’t know and get such a kick out of the connection,” she mentioned in a CBS Information interview.
Each actresses appeared in quite a lot of completely different initiatives collectively, together with Rambling Rose, Wild At Coronary heart, and Citizen Ruth. Equally, Diane was ecstatic to get to work alongside her daughter on the present. “To work with somebody you’re keen on is a good factor,” she informed CBS Information.
Laura introduced on November 3, 2025, that Diane died on the age of 89.
“My superb hero and my profound reward of a mom, Diane Ladd, handed with me beside her this morning, at her residence in Ojai, California,” Laura wrote in a press release obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “She was the best daughter, mom, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that solely desires may have seemingly created. We had been blessed to have her. She is flying along with her angels now.”
