It is a moment that these famed actors have never forgotten: the one time during Laura Dern’s childhood that her mother, Diane Ladd, slapped her: “I guess I shoulda slapped her more?” Ladd said.
“Oh, my God!” laughed Dern.
“Yeah, she was being a little bitchy, and I had a bitchy day…”
Dern interjected, “Oh my God – this is ‘Sunday Morning’! ‘She was being sassy!”
“Okay, okay, she was being sassy, really sassy.”
Braver asked, “Do you think you remember this so much because it was the only time it ever happened?”
“It feels like such a betrayal, ’cause it’s so shocking,” said Dern.
It is these memories of humor, pain and unquestionable love that fill the pages of “Honey, Baby, Mine,” their joint memoir named for an old folk song Ladd’s father used to sing.
Grand Central Publishing
Ladd, now 87, is renowned for roles like the waitress Flo in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” one of three Oscar-nominated performances; and 56-year-old Dern is an Oscar-winner, for a playing a divorce lawyer representing the wife in “Marriage Story.”
The story of how their book – conversations they had while taking walks in Santa Monica – is worthy of a Hollywood film. The daily walks began when Ladd developed a lung disease, believed to be caused by exposure to pesticides.
Dern was told her mother only had six months to live: “They didn’t know what they could do, except if we could get her to walk, it would help her expand her lungs.”
So, they walked, and they talked, with Dern taping the conversations for herself and her children. The discussions were newly-recorded for an audiobook version.
Braver asked, “Why did you decide to make these very private conversations public?”
“I think we share the longing for the people we love – and anyone — to have the experience we had,” Dern said, “which was to know each other better, more deeply.”
“And ourselves at the same time,” added Ladd.
CBS News
They discussed everything, starting with Ladd’s marriage and divorce from Laura’s father, actor Bruce Dern; to her efforts to discourage Laura from joining the family business.
“She was only, like, 11 years old,…
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