Diane Colleen Lane (born January 22, 1965) is an American actress. Born and raised in New York City, Lane made her screen debut at age 14 in George Roy Hill's 1979 film A Little Romance.
The two films that could have catapulted her to star status, Streets of Fire and The Cotton Club, were both commercial and critical failures, and her career languished as a result. After taking a break, Lane returned to acting to appear in The Big Town and Lady Beware, but did not make another big impression on a sizable audience until 1989's popular and critically acclaimed TV miniseries Lonesome Dove, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award. It was not until 1999 that Lane earned further recognition for her role in A Walk on the Moon, and that was followed by her performance alongside George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg in the 2000 blockbuster The Perfect Storm.
She was especially lauded and honored for the 2002 film Unfaithful, which earned her Satellite, New York Film Critics Circle, and National Society of Film Critics awards for Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama). Her performance in Unfaithful also garnered her Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Actress. She was also highly acclaimed by critics for her performance in the immediately subsequent film Under the Tuscan Sun. For much of the rest of the decade, she alternately appeared as a lead actress in romantic films such as Must Love Dogs (2005) and Nights in Rodanthe (2008), and thrillers such as Fierce People (2005), Hollywoodland (2006), and Untraceable (2008).
She has appeared in four films directed by Francis Ford Coppola: The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club, and Jack. She has been in one film directed by his wife Eleanor Coppola: Paris Can Wait.
She also played the recurring role of Martha Kent, the adoptive mother of Superman, in Man of Steel (2013) and subsequent films of the DC Extended Universe. Her most recent film is the 2020 neo-western Let Him Go.
Early life
Lane was born January 22, 1965, in New York City. Her mother, Colleen Leigh Farrington, was a nightclub singer and Playboy centerfold (Miss October 1957), who was also known as "Colleen Price". Her father, Burton Eugene Lane, was a Manhattan drama coach who ran an acting workshop with John Cassavetes, worked as a cab driver, and later taught humanities at City College. When Lane was 13 days old, her parents separated. Lane's mother went to Mexico and obtained a divorce while retaining custody of Lane until she was six years old. Lane's father received custody of her after Lane's mother moved to the state of Georgia. Lane and her father lived in a number of residential hotels in New York City and she rode with him in his taxi.
When Lane was 15, she declared her independence from her father and flew to Los Angeles for a week with actor and friend Christopher Atkins with whom she starred in the 1981 film Child Bride of Short Creek. Lane later remarked, "It was reckless behavior that comes from having too much independence too young." She returned to New York and moved in with a friend's family, paying them rent. In 1981, she enrolled in high school after taking correspondence courses. However, Lane's mother kidnapped her and took her back to Georgia. Lane and her father challenged her mother in court, and six weeks later, she was back in New York. Lane did not speak to her mother for the next three years, but they eventually reconciled.
