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| Birth Name(s) : Rosetta Jacobs |
Date of Birth: January 22, 1932 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
Joseph Morgenstern |
| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Piper Laurie Biography
Piper Laurie was born Rosetta Jacobs in Detroit, Michigan, on January 22, 1932, the daughter of a Polish immigrant and his Russian-American wife. Her father was a furniture dealer who moved his family to Los Angeles, California, when she was 6-years-old. Rosetta was a pretty red-haired little girl, but very shy, so her parents sent her to weekly elocution lessons. In addition to her lessons in Hebrew school, she studied acting at a local acting school, and this eventually led to work at Universal Studios.
Universal had signed her as a contract player when she was only 17-years-old, and changed her screen name to Piper Laurie. She was cast in the movie Louisa (1950), and became very close friends with her costar, Ronald Reagan. She was then cast in Baba (1950) with Tony Curtis, Francis Goes to the Races (1951) with Donald O'Connor, and Ain't Misbehavin' (1955) with Rory Calhoun. The studio tried to enhance her image as an ingenue with press releases stating that she took milk baths and ate gardenia petals for lunch. Although she was making $2,000 per week, her lack of any substantial roles discouraged her so much that by 1955 when she received another script for a Western and 'Another silly part in a silly movie,' she dropped the script in the fireplace, called her agent and told him she didn't care if they fired her, jailed her or sued her.
From there, she went to New York City ro study acting, and worked in live television, starring in The Hallmark Hall of Fame version of Twelfth Night, The (1957), Days of Wine and Roses, The (1958) with Cliff Robertson, which debuted on Playhouse 90 on October 2, and as Kirsten in the Playhouse 90 version of Winterset (1959). In 1961, she got the part of Paul Newman's crippled girlfriend in the classic film, Hustler, The (1961). She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for that role of Sarah Packard. That same year, she was interviewed by a writer/reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, Joseph Morgenstern. She liked his casual dress and lifestyle, and 9 months later, they were married. When she did not receive any substantial acting offers after The Hustler, she retreated with her husband to Woodstock, New York, where she pursued domestic activities such as baking (her grandfather's trade) and raising her only daughter, Anne, born in 1971. In 1976, she accepted the role of Margaret White, the eccentric religious zealot mother of a shy young psychic girl named Carrie (1976), played by Sissy Spacek. Piper received her second supporting Oscar nomination for this role. She and her husband divorced in 1981, she moved to Southern California and obtained many film and television roles.
She got a third Oscar nomination for her role as Mrs. Norman in Children of a Lesser God, (1986), and won an Emmy that same year for her acting in Promise (1986), a television movie with James Garner and James Woods. She has appeared in more than 60 films, from 1950 to the present. Ms. Laurie has appeared in many outstanding television shows from The Best of Broadway in 1954, to roles on Playhouse 90 in 1956, roles on St. Elsewhere, Murder, She Wrote, Matlock, Beauty and the Beast, ER, Diagnosis Murder and Frasier. Her daughter, Anne Grace, has made her a grandmother, and though she lives in Southern California, she frequently visits her daughter in New York. |
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Additional Piper Laurie Biography
Piper Laurie (born January 22, 1932) is an Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe-winning American actress.
Laurie was born Rosetta Jacobs in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Jewish parents Charlotte Sadie (née Alperin) and Alfred Jacobs, a furniture dealer. She moved to Los Angeles when she was young. She signed a contract with Universal Studios when she was 17, co-starring with Ronald Reagan (whom she dated a couple of times before his marriage to Nancy Davis) in Louisa.
In 1965, she starred in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie opposite Maureen Stapleton, Pat Hingle and George Grizzard. She wouldn't star in another Broadway production for 37 years, when she appeared in Lincoln Center's acclaimed revival of Paul Osborn's Morning's at Seven with Julie Hagerty, Buck Henry, Frances Sternhagen and Estelle Parsons.
She received another Academy Award Supporting Actress nomination, in 1987, for Children of a Lesser God, in which she played Marlee Matlin's mother. Laurie also starred as the devious Catherine Martell in David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks. Following the character's supposed death in a mill fire at the end of the first season, the actress (under heavy makeup) returned as "Fumio Yamaguchi," playing the mysterious Mr. Tojamura, who would eventually be revealed to be Catherine Martell in disguise. She also appeared in horror maestro Dario Argento's first American film Trauma, along with the director's daughter Asia Argento.
Laurie played George Clooney's character's mother in ER. In 1998, Laurie starred in the sci-fi thriller The Faculty. Laurie then made a series of guest appearances on television shows including ones on Frasier, State of Mind, Will & Grace, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She returned to the big screen starring in independent films such as Eulogy, and The Dead Girl. |
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Piper Laurie Quote(s)
| If I had stayed in Hollywood, I would have killed myself. Or someone would have done it for me. |
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