Dern-Ladd Acting Dynasty Makes Walk of Fame History

Instead of a singular star, this week the fabled Hollywood Walk of Fame got an entire constellation.

Three members of an acting dynasty were simultaneously honored on Monday: Actress Laura Dern and her legendary parents Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd were presented with the much-coveted star plaques on the sidewalks of Hollywood – the first time in the Walk of Fame’s 50-year history that a family was honored at the same time.

“I couldn’t imagine a more perfect education than being raised in the '70s by Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd on movie sets,” Laura Dern said of spending her formative years in the professional world of her parents, who split two years after her birth but remained close friends in the ensuing decades.

“I can’t even begin to express the incredible good fortune I feel to love what I do and to have found it,” said Laura, who’s films include “Blue Velvet,” “Wild at Heart,” “Jurassic Park,” “Recount,” and “Rambling Rose,” which earned her an Academy Award nomination.

“There are two people I have to thank for that – I guess for my birth and also for the vocation. To my parents Bruce and Diane, who showed me the love and the passion for acting.”

Joked Bruce Dern, “How many times have we driven down the boulevard and said ‘Who’s that? Who’s holding up traffic?’ Well, today it’s us, so live with it!”

“What does this day mean to me?” asked Dern, whose resume includes “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” “The King of Marvin Gardens,” “Silent Running,” “Family Plot,” and an Oscar-nominated turn in “Coming Home.”

“To put it in sports parlance, I can just sum it up by saying that all of you who were connected with this got together and said ‘Oh, Bruce Dern? He could play.'”

Ladd, best known for her Oscar-nominated role in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” agreed: “It is a momentous moment for me. I ask the universe that whoever comes along and looks at these three stars or stands on them, may the energy of the three of us and our lives permeate into them and help each and every one fulfill their destiny with joy and love.”

As a fitting tribute to the family’s long history in Hollywood, their shared star ceremony drew one of the largest and cross-generational assemblies of well-known well-wishers in Walk of Fame memory, including actor Mark Ruffalo, Ted Danson, Mary Steenbergen, Valerie Harper, Connie Stevens and daughters Joely and Tricia Fisher, Della Reese, Bruce Davison, Fraces Fisher, Renee Taylor and directors David Lynch, Joe Dante and Martha Coolidge.

“This is sort of a religious experience for an actor, because what we have here is kind of the holy trinity of acting: the father, the daughter and the holy spirit,” said Ruffalo.

Laura Dern and Diane Ladd will appear together in the forthcoming HBO series "Enlightened," while Bruce Dern continues his role on the cable network's "Big Love."

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