Diane Ladd and Laura Dern. Both names are well-known to two very different generations of film-goers. Ladd starred in movies in the 1960s and ’70s, including “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and in “Wild At Heart” with her daughter, Laura Dern, who’s also famous for her turn in “Jurassic Park.” Acting is the family business — and they’ve got plenty of stories to tell. But that’s only part of this memoir: “Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding).” It started out as a way to record the conversations they took on daily walks after Ladd was given a terminal diagnosis and only six months to live. It became an homage to the lives of a mother and daughter who live in the Hollywood limelight, but also a poignant, funny and powerful look into a close mother-daughter relationship.
DIANE: It is the hardest thing, letting go of your kids. And by the way, you never do.
LAURA: Ha, I just remembered that when I was a teenager, one of my friends, another young actress, called me very emotional, sobbing. I said, “What’s wrong?” She said, “I went to my therapist crying and he diagnosed me. I have a diagnosis!” I said, “What’s your diagnosis?” She said, “Anticipatory nostalgia. Because I was crying thinking how sad I’ll feel when my son goes away to college.” She did not even have children yet. She was eighteen!
DIANE: I don’t know how I let you move out at seventeen to go to UCLA. I guess it’s because you were moving in with a family friend I trusted. I said, “You can’t move out of my house unless you find a home that’s as spiritual as our home.” So you informed me that you were moving in with Marianne Williamson! When someone asked her, “Why are you letting a seventeen-year-old girl live in your home?” she said, “This seventeen-year-old has more sense than most grown-ups I know!” You wanted to fly, and I wanted to love you enough to let you fly.
LAURA: Staying with someone we knew was a safer option. If I was coming and going for work, it was going to be hard to be in a dorm. But then I started working so much, and UCLA wouldn’t let me take a gap year. Do you remember? I got offered “Blue Velvet” two days into my first semester and asked to take eight weeks off to make the movie. I begged them. They said no. In that case, I said, how about a gap year? I gave them the script to read. Surely they’d see how important it was that I do that movie. They said: “Not only will you not get a gap year, but I can’t believe you’re saying goodbye to your college education over this.” After I left, I wasn’t allowed to come back at all!
DIANE: It was so stupid of them to not let you take a gap year. Talk about how the system grounds people instead of helping them fly.
LAURA: And you want to know the greatest irony? I’ve heard that if you want a master’s degree in film from UCLA, one of the key movies you study and many have written a thesis on is “Blue Velvet” — a movie I got kicked out of that school for doing. I really wanted to go to college too!
DIANE: You got ticked off, and with good reason. You made the right choice, of course. When I first saw you up on the screen, I started to cry. So much talent! I thought to myself, This child came through my body so that she could give her gift to the world and entertain people and teach them! I had to find a balance between license and liberty. When you were a teenager, I made sure you had someone go with you to auditions and press.
LAURA: I’m really lucky that you chose savvy women to be around for me as a maternal figure while also giving me some autonomy from it being you. I would never let Jaya go off on location. I don’t care if she had four nannies, I would never let her act until she was grown.
DIANE: That’s unfair to the soul in your child’s body! Everybody has a different path, and some start earlier, and it’s your job to listen. Yes, protect, but encourage their gifts! And when you went to do “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains” as a teenager, I had guards with you — trustworthy guards!
LAURA: One guard.
DIANE: One darn great guard!
LAURA: One good guard, for sure.
DIANE: Damn right.
LAURA: She ended up taking care of me and Diane Lane.
DIANE: Yeah. She took care of both of you. I was always praying for you every night and calling you. And I flew down to check on you.
LAURA: Yes, you did, with Grandma.
DIANE: Did I bring her along also?
LAURA: Yes, and you wore your favorite thing: that red sweatshirt nightgown that went to the floor. It zipped up the front and had little pockets and a hood. And you used to wear it with Dr. Scholl’s sandals.
DIANE: Oh. Some memory, wow. My memory’s not that good. I have an actor’s memory. I could take a history book home and memorize the whole thing for a test and get an A the next day. But then after that, I forget everything I read. I can always learn lines, bam, on the way to the set. But if someone says, “I love that line you said in that movie!” I don’t know what line they’re talking about.
LAURA: Ha, well, that red outfit made an impression. Diane Lane loved it so much that you gave it to her when you left. And she wore it every night after that.
DIANE: Aw, bless her heart.
LAURA: I can’t imagine what it was like for you when I went off to work when I was younger. I’m going to have a taste of that soon when Ellery goes off to college. I’m a little nervous about how I’ll handle it.
DIANE: Well, it’s a real transition you’ve got to face and to honor. When you left home, I knew you were working and learning, and that brought me a lot of joy. You can have joy and fear and all the emotions at the same time. You just need to look at the big picture of what you’re accomplishing and why. Every time I missed you, I made myself think: She is spreading her wings! She’s learning to live her own life! I was proud of your initiative. It was a great pride that I felt as a parent. I had accomplished something that I was supposed to accomplish. But it was a very hard time, feeling you pull away.
LAURA: Do you remember relief in my leaving home? Was there any part, even if it was five percent, where you felt like, Diane’s life starts now!
DIANE: No, your priority is still not yourself. You try to make it that. And you go off and you do things. But your need to care for that child is there every minute. It never leaves — never, Laura! That’s why there are couples who raise their children and are happy together until the birds fly away, and then the two people look at each other and say, “We don’t have anything to talk about.” There’s a vacancy, an emptiness, a hole. It was very hard for me at first. I had good friends, but I wasn’t married at the time, and I was very, very lonely. You were my life, my heart. Even now, I always want to know that you’re OK. [Cries.]
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