Piper Laurie, ‘Carrie’ and ‘Twin Peaks’ star, dead at 91
Piper Laurie, the acclaimed actor renowned for her roles as Carrie‘s religiously zealous mother in the eponymous Stephen King classic and Twin Peaks‘ Catherine Martell, who was in charge of Packard Sawmill, has passed away at the age of 91.
Born Rosetta Jacobs on January 22, 1932, the budding actor adopted the name Piper Laurie when she signed with Universal Studios at the age of 17. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, she achieved early success, starring as Ronald Reagan’s daughter in Louisa.
She also appeared alongside Donald O’Connor, Tony Curtis, and Rory Calhoun in films like Francis Goes to the Races, Son of Ali Baba, and Ain’t Misbehavin’.
As a young rising star in Hollywood, Laurie was struck with how women in the industry must look and behave, and how “everybody censored everything”. “All the Universal actresses had very light hair or very dark hair; arched eyebrows; oval, slender faces, and very voluptuous lips,” she told The New York Times in 1977. “The waist cincher made everybody’s figure look alike, and the high heels made everybody walk alike.”
These stresses led to Laurie’s departure from the scene and relocation to New York City, where she sought to work on the stage and in television.
After her role in The Hustler alongside Paul Newman in 1961, which earned her an Academy Award nomination, substantial movie offers became scarce. In 1964, she appeared in TV dramas like The Eleventh Hour and Breaking Point. In 1965, she starred in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie.
Laurie’s next film role didn’t come until she portrayed Margaret White in the 1976 iconic horror film Carrie, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film’s success and her performance reignited her career. “She is a remarkable actress,” her co-star Sissy Spacek said, “She never does what you expect her to do — she always surprises you with her approach to a scene.”
In Twin Peaks, Laurie took on the role of Catherine Martell, the conniving matriarch in charge of the town’s sawmill. Her power struggle for mill ownership with her sister-in-law Josie and her involvement with the cunning Ben Horne were pivotal elements in the show’s soap opera-like complexity, contributing to the enigmatic and genre-blending nature of David Lynch’s series.
The actor received Emmy Award nominations for her performances in both seasons of the show’s original run.
Laurie has been a guest star on a number of significant television shows, including Frasier, Matlock, and Will & Grace, and she returned to film in the 2000s. Her last appearance was the feature White Boy Rick in 2018.
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