Piper Laurie, born Rosetta Jacobs, on January 22, 1932, in Detroit, Michigan, is a seasoned actress whose career spans over six decades. She achieved great critical acclaim and received various accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards and a BAFTA Award.
Nobody thought of me as an actress. They just remembered that publicity story about my munching flower petals for breakfast. I even thought of giving up the name ‘Piper Laurie’ because I felt there was a stigma attached to it. I never could figure out just how many parts I lost and how many parts I won because of this name.
Piper Laurie
The Begining
She began her acting journey with Louisa (1950), starring Ronald Reagan, followed by “Francis Goes to the Races (1951),” co-starring Donald O’Connor, “Son of Ali Baba (1951), “co-starring Tony Curtis, and Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1955),” co-starring Rory Calhoun.
Laurie scored her first Oscar nomination for her work opposite Paul Newman in 1961’s classic poolhall drama “The Hustler,” in which she played an alcoholic. Due to a lack of good offers, she moved to New York and appeared in the dramas ” The Eleventh Hour” and “Breaking Point” in 1964. In 1965, she starred in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie.”
In the mid-’70s, she starred as religious fanatic Margaret White in the horror film “Carrie,” for which she was again nominated for an Oscar. She received a third Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Mrs. Norman, Marlee Matlin’s icy mother, in “Children of a Lesser God (1986).”
She was awarded an Emmy for her performance in Promise (1986), a television movie co-starring James Garner and James Woods.
Her performance as the plotting, power-hungry Catherine Martell in David Lynch’s landmark TV series “Twin Peaks” brought her two of her nine Emmy nominations.
Laurie died in Los Angeles on October 14, 2023, at the age of 91.
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