Mother and daughter, Diane Ladd and Laura Dern

Land they were given six months to live. A sentence without appeal. The lungs of Diane Ladd, splendid interpreter of classics (milestones such as Alice doesn’t live here anymore by Martin Scorsese, Wild Heart by David Lynch and Rosa disarray and her lovers by Martha Coolidge), were compromised. Poisons in the air in Southern California, where he lived, had worn out both organsand she was now struggling to breathe. Diane Ladd was distraught, her daughter Laura Dernin turn one of the most significant actresses of her generation (I’ve been following her since Pink confusion in 1991, in a career that ranges from more independent cinema to blockbusters such as Jurassic Park by Steven Spielberg, from Blue velvet to Twin Peakss by David Lynch, up to the successful TV series Big Little Lies And Enlightened-The new me) was destroyed: it was a diagnosis that left no hope.

Laura Dern and Diane Ladd, walking to heal

“It felt like the world was collapsing,” he recalls. “I looked at my mother who suddenly seemed so fragile and vulnerable.” There was only one thing to do: expand her lung capacity, and that required her to walk every day. “But how? Mum is an actress and a story teller I thought then if I asked her during our “forced walks” to tell me stories, and to talk about herself, about us, she could at least be distracted a little… For six months we walked every day, having conversations we had never had before.”

That therapeutic long march is collected today in Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding), a long and beautiful title that could be translated as “My Darling: A Mother and Daughter Talk About Life, Death, Love (and Banana Puddings)”, which immediately entered the New York Times Best Seller list. The title quotes a line from an old Woodie Guthrie folk song that Ladd often heard hummed in his family., and in the 239 pages of this four-handed memoir, memories, confessions and conflicts, photographs and family recipes alternate in 15 conversations. «Ours is a version of The Arabian Nights, but with Santa Monica as a backdrop” Dern says today, laughing. “With me encouraging mum to talk non-stop.”

Four (award-winning) films together

Honey, Baby, Mine describes a strong emotional and professional bond (together the two actresses – producers – activists have made 4 films, earning nominations for the Oscars, the Golden Globes and the Spirit Awards, the prizes for independent cinema); but above all it is the story of two women who don’t give up. Four years after countless walks and tales, Diane Ladd is here, in front of me, in a small auditorium: she is 87 years old, talkative, combative, witty and declares: «… and instead, in defiance of all predictions, in the meantime I have shot two films, worked in two series and wrote a book. Moral: don’t take what the doctors tell you at face value!».

I watch mother and daughter in admiration as they tell their story on the stage of the small theater at the New Roads School in Santa Monica. The audience is made up of old friends of the Ladd and Dern family, children, grandchildren and relatives, teachers of two generations, people from the entertainment world, political and ecological activists: the atmosphere is that of a family reunion. Diane is elegant in trousers and a black shirt, Chanel jacket and patent leather moccasins, white hair to the shoulders, a face with delicate and perfect features. Laura wears a camel-colored shirtdress, with very long hair and stiletto heels, smiles and looks at her mother with a protective air. Diane and Laura seem so different, and yet… Laura speaks calmly, her voice deep, she listens patiently, she smiles; Diane, with the swinging rhythm of the southern woman, is lively and witty, she has the actor’s taste for exciting, surprise and seduce his audience, and almost acts to entertain us, amaze us, provoke us.

A lesson for parents and children

«We did something we had never done before» begins Ladd. «We spoke with our hearts in our hands, telling each other the truth. An unusual thing, which parents and children never do, is to dig deep into the most hidden folds of the soul.” Dern continues: «We certainly didn’t think we’d make a book out of it, but the motive is simple: mother lived in her home in California, surrounded by farms and agricultural businesses that regularly use toxic pesticides, she became increasingly weak, frail and illand we didn’t know what was happening, how to react, how to help her.”

They interrupt each other. «Ginger, my little dog saved my life” recalls Ladd. And here his soul as an ecological activist takes over, with a strong and indignant voice, he points an accusatory finger, he says: «They sprayed tons of deadly pesticides in my area, as if we were cockroaches, for three years, without anyone knowing. I only realized this after my beloved Ginger died in my arms. By then my lungs were also damaged beyond repair. You know that? This year alone, tons of poison have been used here, between Ventura and Los Angelesor. No one has the right to carry out certain actions against you and your children.” Applause is inevitable.

The knots untie

Diane and Laura remember differently, they compare, laugh, are moved, tease each other then make peace, finally freed from a burden that has been hanging over them for years. Knots are untied and, as they return to the past, there is enormous affection but also resentment. Unresolved clashes, generational differences, conflicting versions of the same story emerge. In short: Honey, Baby, Mine is the opposite of Mommie Dearest, the dramatic autobiography of Christina Crawford, Joan’s adopted daughter. Here empathy, tenderness and gratitude prevail, always mixed with nostalgia.

During the conversation Diane reaches for Laura’s hand, and Laura touches her shoulder to reassure her. We in the public follow her as a guru, a life teacher, a friendly and wise mother. «All parents lie to their children» she explains, she who has a degree in psychology and nutrition, because they want to appear confident, perfect, and all children lie to their parents, so as not to disappoint them. I ask you here: communicate sincerely with each other, with your heart. How many times have I said to myself: why didn’t I ask my mother this…”.

Diane Ladd was a determined little girl. At six years old she had already decided that she would be an actress. «I had a vision» she tells us. “And I knew I would soon be leaving Mississippi, where my dad was a vet.” In fact, at the age of 16 he left home and that departure was followed, among others, by the meeting with John Carradine, the first audition, then Lucille Ball, Broadwayfinally the appearance of the cousin, the playwright Tennessee Williams and the meeting with Bruce Dern, Laura’s father. Diane remembers a now distant Hollywood, her friendship with Norman Mailer, Shelley Winters, and the admiration of John Lennon and Yoko Ono who declared that she was the greatest actress in America, her decades-long friendship with David Lynch. You never sense a note of self-pity in Ladd’s stories, even though it must not have been easy to survive in an era in which male prevarication was very strong. «I can only say that Hollywood is also populated by certain bad guys…» she says with an ironic air.

Love that prolongs life

Painful memories also emerge from the narrative: Laura, who lived with her grandmother Mary, felt neglected by a mother who was always busy elsewhere. Diane, in turn, recalls the pain of divorcing Bruce Dern, the torment of death of first daughter, Diane Elizabeth, aged 18 months. And then the anxiety and worry of raising a daughter as a single mother, with the financial responsibility of the family on her shoulders.

At times Laura looks at her, amazed: «Mom I didn’t know this, you never told me… In the end, weeks passed between one confession and another, our steps and the distances became longer» explains Laura. «Now we were walking between Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica, and Mom’s lungs were improving». “Our conversations and your love have prolonged my life,” Ladd concludes. «There is nothing stronger: love and wisdom always win. I see it clearly now that I have overcome the unimaginable.”

After a special evening for the public, and for all of us, mothers and daughters, I return home and while driving I repeat to myself: «Courage: you too must speak with a spirit of truth to your daughter. Of many things that have never been talked about, about the past, about us, about the future: with your mother, after all, you never did it.”

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