Diane often had the opportunity to share the screen with Laura, as she began appearing in several of her mother’s films when she was a child. Most recently, the mother-daughter duo had the chance to share the spotlight once more in the Mike White-produced TV show Enlightened from 2011 to 2013, in which Diane played the onscreen mom of Laura’s character.
However, in recent years, Diane’s health had taken a turn. In 2018, she shared she had been diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease she developed after unknowingly being exposed to pesticides sprayed in her neighborhood. Given just three to six months to live, she and her daughter were inspired to work together once more to preserve their memories and co-wrote their book titled Honey, Baby, Mine.
“We told each other everything,” Laura said on Today in 2023. “She said that she really felt that finally releasing some of the grief and challenges and heartbreak of her life, as well as us laughing over absurd fights and silly things we have been through, was in fact, so healing physically and emotionally.”
And for Laura, 58, it was an opportunity to see her mom in another light.
“I was shocked at how little I’d asked her,” Laura noted. “Even the simple stuff. I’ve been raised by an actor, I worked alongside my mother, yet, I never asked, ‘Why did you want to become an actress from this tiny town in Mississippi?'”
