2019 HSDFF HONORARY CHAIR

DIANE LADD

Diane Ladd — actress, writer, director, author — is a winner of more than 57 international awards including The British Academy Award, Golden Globe Award®, Independent Spirit Film Award, and the Cannes Palme d’Or. She has been nominated for three Emmy Awards® and three Academy Awards® for the films Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Wild at Heart, and Rambling Rose. In Rambling Rose, she starred with Laura Dern and made Academy Award® history as the first mother-daughter duo to earn nominations for the same film. The late Princess Diana chose this film as one of her all-time favorites and honored it with a London Royal Premier and a party in their honor.

Ladd’s soon-to-be released film is Todd Robinson’s The Last Full Measure where she stars with Christopher Plummer, William Hurt, Alison Sudol, and Sebastian Stan. Beginning in August, she can be seen every Sunday Night in another season of Chesapeake Shores as Nell O’Brien, the matriarch of the family.

She was recently seen in 20th Century Fox’s Joy portraying Joy Mangano’s grandmother Mimi and narrated the entire film, which also starred Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, and Bradley Cooper. The film was by Director David O. Russell (Silver Lining Playbook, The Fighter).

Ladd has been in over 200 films and TV shows including the Alice TV Series, for which she won the Golden Globe, as well as Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital, and co-starred in the hit TV series Enlightened with her daughter Laura Dern for HBO. She also won kudos and three Best Director/Writer awards for her film, Mrs. Munck; she was the first woman to direct an ex-husband, Bruce Dern.

Diane has authored the book Spiraling Through the School of Life – A Mental Physical and Spiritual Discovery (Find Your Miracles), endorsed by Marianne Williamson, Stephen King, Whoopi Goldberg, Dr. Dean Ornish, and Dr. Wayne Dwyer, among others. She is the winner of the 2014 Tennessee Williams Literary Award and was honored at their Festival in New Orleans for her newest book A Bad Afternoon for a Piece of Cake, a collection of ten short stories.

Aside from seminars on acting, she lectures across the nation on spiritual and health topics for the medical and lay community at large when time permits. She holds a Masters in Esoteric Psychology and a certificate in Nutrition and is a member of the National Board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild. She is President of the Art and Culture Taskforce, a 501(c)3 that promotes Culture and Arts in schools across America.