TMS Muse of the Week: Diane Lane
(Life Magazine)
During the press tour for Ryan Murphy’s “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans” (2024), I found it interesting co-stars Molly Ringwald and Demi Moore were constantly reminded the mini-series was technically a Brat Pack reunion for the two. But the interviewers didn’t seem to realize another co-star from the show, Diane Lane, was also a young actress a part of the same crowd as Molly and Demi. Just like the redhead and raven-haired ladies, Diane was a teen star in the early-to-mid 1980s and associated with youth related pop culture of the decade. Similar to Molly, Diane began performing at a very young age, but had a much more dysfunctional family environment which included her parents divorcing when the light brunette was only two weeks old. Said parents were former acting coach Burton Lane, who became a full time taxi driver while raising Diane; and Colleen Farrington, a fashion model and one-time Playboy Playmate who lost custody of her daughter twice. Despite her parental background, it was actually attending Pentecostal church services with her family that inspired Diane to get involved with theater productions because she found the sermons had such theatrical deliveries as a child.
Though she always had a good relationship with her father, Diane received emancipation in her teens after breaking through her career with the 1978 off-Broadway production of Elizabeth Swados’ musical ‘Runaways’ and the starring role in George Roy Hill’s family romcom A Little Romance (1979), both at age 13. I think one reason Diane isn’t thought of as a ‘Brat Packer’ is that she didn’t work on many fun teen movies with directors like John Hughes or Cameron Crowe. In fact, besides his wife Eleanor, Diane might be the closest thing to a muse Francis Ford Coppola has had throughout his career. As the female lead in three of his pictures, The Outsiders (1983), Rumble Fish (1983) and The Cotton Club (1984), the starlet got more exposure through dramas than comedies, romcoms or family films. This might be why it was easy for her to cross over to grown-up roles, even with The Outsiders and Rumble Fish technically focusing on high schoolers. She played an adult in The Cotton Club and from there didn’t look back; with parts like fictional punk-rocker Ellen Aim in Walter Hill’s Streets of Fire (1984), portraying Paulette Goddard in Richard Attenborough’s Chaplin (1992), the family matriarch in Jay Russell’s My Dog Skip (2000), Mark Wahlberg’s love interest in Wolfgang Petersen’s The Perfect Storm (2000), a race horse owner in Randall Wallace’s Secretariat (2010), playing Clark Kent/Superman’s adoptive mom in Zack Snyder’s DCU features (2013-17); plus parts on Simon Wincer’s “Lonesome Dove” (1989) and Netflix’s “House of Cards” (2018).
(20th Century Studios)
In 2003, Diane received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress with Adrian Lyne’s erotic thriller Unfaithful (2002), and she reunited with Coppola on his infamous flop Jack (1996) and starred in Eleanor’s own directed Paris can Wait (2017). Though she’s had a wide range of hits, classics and stinkers, the veteran performer has always made interesting choices in her career, such as Lou Adler’s Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982); which was shelved by Paramount for two years before getting dumped on late night cable for being “unmarketable.” But in the past 40 years, the punk-rock, girl power indie piece has grown a dedicated following within both the counterculture and feminist circles of film and music fandoms. On stage, Diane even expanded her versatility with roles in revivals of classic plays such as William Shakespeare’s ‘12th Night’ in 1989 and Tennessee Williams’ ‘Sweet Bird of Youth’ in 2012. These days, kids might recognize Diane’s voice as Riley’s mom in Pete Docter’s Inside Out (2015) and Kelsey Mann’s Inside Out 2 (2024).
As for her personal life, the star’s relationships have actually been just as chaotic as her childhood was. Her first boyfriend was 19-year-old Christopher Atkins when Diane was 15 while they co-starred in Robert Lewis’ melodrama Child Bride of Short Creek (1981). Shortly after filming, Chris and legally emancipated Diane flew to LA for a whole week, which the latter publicly referred to as “too much independence, too young” in a 1989 People Magazine interview. During a 2014 interview on Howard Stern’s radio show, Rob Lowe claimed all of the young male actors from The Outsiders had crushes on Diane, but she “wouldn’t give any of us the time of day.” That apparently didn’t stop co-star Matt Dillon from signing up on Rumble Fish and Ben Bolt’s crime caper The Big Town (1987) hoping the dirty blonde would eventually change her mind [she didn’t]. Another co-star, this time a married Ray Winstone, allegedly flirted with Diane regularly during production of The Fabulous Stains while she was still 16. After Chris Atkins, the teen starlet dated fellow nepo baby Timothy Hutton in 1981 and was his date to the Oscars when he made history as the youngest person to win Best Supporting Actor for Robert Redford’s Ordinary People (1980). In 1984-85, Diane was the girlfriend of hair metal frontman Jon Bon Jovi and tagged along as his plus-one during his band, Bon Jovi’s, second national tour in ’85. The relationship quickly came to a halt when Jon walked in to find Diane in his bandmate, lead guitarist Richie Sambora’s hotel room in a compromising context. The legend goes this incident inspired Jon to pen the classic break-up anthem ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ on Bon Jovi’s mega successful 1986 album ‘Slippery When Wet.’ Diane also had a brief fling with Duran Duran bassist John Taylor not long after JBJ.
Marriage wise, the actress’ first husband was actor Christopher Lambert from 1988 to 1994. The union resulted in two schlocky b-movies together, Charles Finch’s Priceless Beauty (1988) and Carl Schenkel’s Knight Moves (1992), and a daughter, Eleanor, born in 1993. A decade later, Diane was wed to teen star-turned-leading man Josh Brolin in 2003-2013, during which included an episode where Diane called the police in the middle of the night on December 20th, 2004, and reported an altercation of domestic battery. The misdemeanor charges were dropped only a day later, but apparently not enough to save the marriage.
The cool part of all the wild and crazy aspects of Diane’s life is they’ve never affected her image or career. In fact, I bet most people don’t even realize how messy her love life is or how unstable her mother was. To some, Diane’s an iconic ‘80s celeb crush. To others, the lead singer of a cinematic punk band. To someone else, she’s the quintessential movie mom. If Diane Lane gives love a bad name, film fans have barely noticed.
