Laura Dern confirms her mother, Oscar-nominated actress Diane Ladd, has died aged 89: 'My amazing hero'

Oscar-nominated actress Diane Ladd, the mother of Laura Dern, has died aged 89.

Dern confirmed the devastating news in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, announcing her mother had ded in her California home.

"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 statement reads.

"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 had a long history in Hollywood, earning Academy Award nominations for her roles in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose.

She married Bruce Dern in 1960 and they were married for seven years, welcoming daughter Laura in 1967.

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The actress had spent most of her career starring in television series, scoring her breakout role in Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore in 1974.

The role landed her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.

By the 1980s she had appeared in the crime thriller film Black Widow and the comedy sequel National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Ladd also joined the cast of Alice, a sitcom based on the hit 1974 film.

In the 1990s she earned another Oscar nomination for her work in David Lynch's Wild at Heart, where she played the on-screen mother of her real-life daughter's character.

Ladd also starred opposite her daughter in Rambling Rose, which scored her another nomination.

Her later roles included Ray Donovan and Young Sheldon.

Ladd was told she only had six months to live when she was misdiagnosed with lung disease in 2018. She made a full recovery after daughter Dern transferred her to another hospital.

Although she was a successful actress, her life was not without tragedy.

Her husband of 26 years, Robert Charles Hunter, died just three months ago, aged 77.

Hunter, the former CEO of PepsiCo Food Systems, died in Texas while visiting his children in August.

Much earlier in her life, her youngest daughter Diane Elizabeth Dern, died in a drowning incident in 1960.

Ladd said the tragic death impacted her marriage and was one of the reasons she and Dern got a divorce.

"We suffered the tragedy of our daughter's death together and thought another child would help us, but we were so bruised," the actress told Parade magazine in 1992.

Ladd's cause of death has not been revealed.

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