Southern belle Diane Ladd was born Rose Diane Ladner in Meridian, Mississippi. Her mother, Mary Bernadette (Anderson), was a former actress, from a Norwegian and German immigrant family, and her father, Preston Paul Ladner, was a veterinarian, from a family with deep roots in the American South. Ladd has earned recognition for her Academy Award-nominated performance as the comical, independent and vulgar Flo in Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974). She went on to earn Academy Award nominations for performances as the mentally deranged, calculating Marietta Fortune in David Lynch's Wild at Heart (1990), and "Mother" in Martha Coolidge's film adaptation of Calder Willingham's Rambling Rose (1991).She is the mother of actress Laura Dern, with her ex-husband, actor Bruce Dern.