



Diane Ladd came from a large Southern family that included, among other notables, the playwright Tennessee Williams, who helped Ladd get her first acting job. Bruce Dern comes from aristocratic forebears: His uncle was poet Archibald MacLeish, and his grandfather was George Dern, secretary of war under Franklin D. “I think Laura’s almost frighteningly well adjusted, especially considering the world she grew up in” says Nicolas Cage, who became a close pal during the making of Wild at Heart.īoth sides of Dern’s family have rather illustrious pasts. You’ve never seen them in the same room at the same time, have you?” As she paces the store, Dern – whose own musical favorites include Robert Plant and Kate Bush – goes on to explain that she and Moon Zappa are good friends and that they’ve decided that Bruce Dern is also the same man as Frank Zappa.Ĭlearly, Dern hasn’t exactly had your typical upbringing. “Alice Cooper and Bruce Dern are the same man! I’m telling you. “LOOK AT THIS,” DERN SQUEALS WITH DELIGHT AS SHE bounces happily through the cassette section at the Tower store on Sunset Boulevard, where she’s come to find music to play on the set of The Gift.
