Piper Laurie

Piper Laurie

Birth : 1932-01-22, Detroit, Michigan, USA

History

Piper Laurie (born Rosetta Jacobs) is an American actress of stage and screen best known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks and the films The Hustler, Carrie, and Children of a Lesser God, all of which brought her Academy Award nominations. She was nominated by BAFTA as well as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for best performance by an actress in 'The Hustler' with Paul Newman. She stopped working for fifteen years after 'The Hustler' to devote her energies to the Civil Rights movement and to the Vietnam War, feeling acting was less important. When she accepted work again she was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actress for the original 'Carrie' with Sissy Spacek, and again as best supporting actress in 'Children of a Lesser God' with Marlee Matlin. In 1991, she won the Golden Globe for her portrayal as Catherine Martell in the David Lynch cult favorite Twin Peaks, and was nominated for an Emmy for both best actress and best supporting actress. She has been nominated twelve times for an Emmy, including one for the original and celebrated live broadcast of 'The Days of Wine and Roses' with Cliff Robertson, directed by John Frankenheimer, as well as for her comedic performance in 'Frasier'. She won the Emmy for 'Promise' opposite James Woods and James Garner. She was Harvard's Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year, and she also received an SFECA award for her performance as Dolly in the film of 'The Grass Harp'.

Profile

Piper Laurie
Piper Laurie
Piper Laurie
Piper Laurie
Piper Laurie
Piper Laurie
Piper Laurie
Piper Laurie
Piper Laurie

Movies

White Boy Rick
Grandma Verna Wershe
The story of a teenager, Richard Wershe Jr., who became an undercover informant for the police during the 1980s and was ultimately arrested for drug-trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.
Snapshots
Rose
Rose spends her days fishing near the beautiful lake house she’s called home for 50 years. She’s not getting any younger and her daughter Patti worries about Rose being all alone, but the stubborn matriarch will not sell. There are memories here that she doesn’t want to leave. These come flooding back one weekend during a visit from Patti and granddaughter Allison, when a long-forgotten roll of film reminds Rose of the summer she met and fell in love with the bold and beautiful Louise.
Bad Blood... the Hunger
Milly Lathrop
Several college students embark on a summer of sun and fun, but find that their adventure turns eerily macabre when dark and ancient forces propel them into a sinister enclave peopled by human, night-stalking, ravenous flesh-eaters whose wit and seemingly benign exteriors hide dreadful and deadly secrets that border on the supernatural.
Tony Curtis: Driven to Stardom
Self
Tony Curtis, the man who influenced Elvis Presley and James Dean. A sex symbol, a matinee idol, a powerful and magnetic actor, Tony Curtis was the original movie star.
Another Harvest Moon
June
Another Harvest Moon is a tender drama about four elderly Americans coping with life in a nursing home. FRANK, ELLA, ALICE and JUNE gather each morning for a game of cards. They have become a family to one another, offering unyielding support, constant bickering and strong opinions about life, death and everything in between.
Hesher
Madeleine Forney
A young boy has lost his mother and is losing touch with his father and the world around him. Then he meets Hesher who manages to make his life even more chaotic.
Secrets from Another Place: Creating Twin Peaks
A select group of key creative forces involved in the making of Twin Peaks reveals their take on the fascinating creation and journey of the wildly popular show.
Hounddog
Grammie
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
The Dead Girl
Arden's Mother
The clues to a young woman's death come together as the lives of seemingly unrelated people begin to intersect.
Eulogy
Charlotte Collins
A black comedy that follows three generations of a family, who come together for the funeral of the patriarch - unveiling a litany of family secrets and covert relationships.
The Hustler: The Inside Story
Herself (archive footage)
A brief overview of The Hustler's making and the players involved.
The Last Brickmaker in America
Ruth Anne
A man must cope with the loss of his wife and the obsolescence of his job before finding redemption by becoming a role model to an equally lost 13-year-old.
Acting 'Carrie'
Self
In this documentary, director Brian De Palma and the stars from his film "Carrie" (such as Sissy Spacek, Amy Irving, Piper Laurie, William Katt, Nancy Allen and others) share stories about the making of the classic horror film 25 years after its release.
Midwives
Cheryl Visco
It's a cold and stormy night, and in a house in rural Vermont, midwife Sibyl Danforth is, together with the father and an assistant, in the middle of a homebirth. As time passes, the woman in labor meets with difficulties and Sibyl concludes that it would be preferable for the woman to deliver her baby in the hospital. Though a dead telephone line and bad weather prevents Sibyl from going anywhere. Black ice and a persisten snowstorm makes transportation an impossibility. Early in the morning, the woman dies from what they believe to be a stroke and in all the chaos, Sibyl promptly decides to do a C-section to save the baby. The baby survives, but the mother is dead and tragedy is obvious. Yet, it's only going to get worse for Sibyl as her assistant is certain that the woman was still alive when Sibyl performed the C-section. Sibyl is charged with manslaughter, brought before the court and her life is and will forever be changed.
Possessed
Aunt Hanna
An 11 year old boy starts throwing temper tantrums, vomiting on and attacking people, and swearing uncontrollably. Furniture begins to move on its own when he is around, and he doesn't remember any of it. After giving up on the protestants, the boy's parents turn to the catholic church for help. Father Bowden is a WWII veteran who is experiencing nightmares, flashbacks and other personal problems, including alcoholism. He is recruited by the archbishop to perform a series of exorcisms. This is the apparent true account of the last exorcism known to have been done by the catholic church.
Dario Argento: An Eye for Horror
Herself
Documentary that explores Argento's film career.
The Mao Game
Growing up neurotic in a Hollywood family
Inherit the Wind
Sarah Brady
Two great lawyers argue the case for and against a science teacher accused of the crime of teaching evolution.
The Rage: Carrie 2
Margaret White (voice) (archive footage) (uncredited)
After the suicide of her only friend, Rachel has never felt more on the outside. The one person who reached out to her, Jessie, also happens to be part of the popular crowd that lives to torment outsiders like her. But Rachel has something else that separates her from the rest, a secret amazing ability to move things with her mind. Sue Snell, the only survivor of Carrie White's rampage twenty-two years ago, may hold the key to helping Rachel come to terms with her awesome, but unwanted power. But as Rachel slowly learns to trust, a terrible trap is being laid for her. And making her angry could prove to be fatal.
Palmer's Pick Up
Evangelist
Two dimwit owners of a struggling hauling company are approached about hauling a huge, mysterious box across country at the end of the century. The cargo has religious significance and may be an attempt to release Satan in the Devil's Triangle to start the next century. En route, many step out to try to stop their delivery...
The Faculty
Mrs. Karen Olson
When some very creepy things start happening around school, the kids at Herrington High make the chilling discovery that their faculty is being controlled by body-snatching aliens.
Alone
Lillie Dawson
John Webb is recently widowed and living alone on the farm he and his brother used to share. He rarely sees his daughters, Jacqueline and Grace Ann, and his only company is Grey, the farm's longtime overseer. John's solitude is interrupted by his nephews, Carl and Gus Jr., who have been approached about drilling for oil on the farm. Tensions rise as John clashes with his opportunistic family.
A Christmas Memory
Jennie
A new version of Truman Capote's 1956 tale based on his own bittersweet upbringing in Alabama. The story deals with a seven-year-old who forms a special friendship with his simple, older cousin whose two sisters and bachelor brother feel he needs better influences and role models and decide to send him to military school after the Christmas holidays.
Intensity
Miriam Braynard
Chyna Shepherd is a twenty-six-year-old psychology student who survived an extremely troubled past. While visiting Laura Templeton's house, a farm in the Napa Valley. A serial killer named Edgler Foreman Vess breaks into the house, killing Laura and her parents. Chyna survives, but she learns of Vess's captive: a girl, just as innocent as Chyna, trapped in Vess's home far from the Napa Valley.
The Road to Galveston
Jordan Roosevelt, at 65, found herself alone, destitute, and depressed. Up against the wall, she took heart from the suggestion of a friend, a blind woman who was a nurse: enter a foster care program in which one takes care of patients in their own home. The patients she cares for are Alzheimers sufferers, and she shares her home with three other women in advanced stages of the disease, one (Gayle) wheelchair bound. And with these women, Jordan realizes a lifelong dream - to feel the ocean breeze. An accidental find of a coffee can stash of cash, buried by her late husband, makes the trip possible. Based on the true story of Peggy Lee of Camilla, Texas (the Alzheimers, the patients, and the foster care program are actual, the trip to the Galveston beaches is fictional).
St. Patrick's Day
MaryPat Donnelly-McDonough
An Irish family has a reunion near St Patrick's Day, and all of the expected drama ensues.
The Crossing Guard
Helen Booth
After his daughter died in a hit and run, Freddy Gale has waited six years for John Booth, the man responsible, to be released from prison. On the day of release, Gale visits Booth and announces that he will kill him in one week. Booth uses his time to try and make peace with himself and his entourage, and even finds romance. Gale, whose life is spiraling down because of his obsession towards Booth, will bring himself on the very edge of sanity. At he end of the week, both men will find themselves on a collision course with each other.
The Grass Harp
Dolly Talbo
Based on the novel by Truman Capote, this often-witty coming-of-age drama looks at a young man growing up with an unusual family in the Deep South in the 1940s. Becoming an orphan in 1935, Collin moves to his dad's cousins Verena and Dolly. Verena is a rich, bossy businesswoman. Dolly, Collin and the maid revolt, moving to a tree house.
Fighting for My Daughter
Judge Edna Burton
Unable to get the police to help, a woman launches her own investigation to save her daughter from a dangerous prostitution ring.
Shadows of Desire
Ellis Snow
A woman is torn between her love for a gentle man, and her secret passion for his dangerous brother.
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway
Georgia
Frank, a retired Irish seaman, and Walter, a retired Cuban barber, are two lonely old men trapped in the emptiness of their own lives. When they meet in a park Frank is able to start a conversation after several attempts. They begin to spend time together and become friends. But because of their different characters they often quarrel with each other and finally seperate after Frank misbehaves to Walter's friend Elaine.
Sad Inheritance
Margaret Kinsey
After filling her life with addictions, Christina (Susan Dey) is left with a dead-end job, a deadbeat boyfriend and a bad rapport with her mother (Piper Laurie). The last thing she needs is a baby, a sentiment the authorities agree with when the infant is born with a drug dependency. Now, Christina's future is in the hands of a dedicated social worker (Lorraine Toussaint), whose own instincts as a mother have her fighting for the child's rights.
Trauma
Adriana Petrescu
An anorexic young woman escapes from a psychiatric clinic and meets a young man who wants to help. She is caught and returned to her parents, who are soon beheaded by a garrotting stranger making the rounds about town, apparently striking only when it rains. The orphaned young woman and her new lover launch their own investigation and are endangered when a link is discovered with the victims and a particular operation performed years before.
Rich in Love
Vera Delmage
Warren Odom, a rich Southern gentleman, is left in a state of shock when his wife, Helen, leaves him unexpectedly. With Helen gone, Warren's kindhearted teenage daughter, Lucille, cares for him and tries to cheer him up. Warren slowly starts to recover, and begins a relationship with another woman, Vera Delmage. However, his life is complicated when his older daughter, Rae, arrives in town pregnant.
Storyville
Constance Fowler
While investigating his own blackmailing, a young politician uncovers his family's deep secrets.
Other People's Money
Bea Sullivan
When a corporate raider threatens a hostile takeover of a 'mom and pop' company, the patriarch of the company enlists the help of his wife's attractive daughter—who is a lawyer—to stop the takeover. However, the raider soon becomes infatuated with her, and enjoys the legal manoeuvring as he tries to win her heart.
Rising Son
Martha Robinson
A factory foreman with 36 years experience becomes despondent after being laid off by his company which has just been taken over by a Japanese conglomerate and is unable to find any other work. Meanwhile, his son uses his father's unemployment as an excuse to drop out of the pre-med program his father pressured him to enter.
Twin Peaks
Catherine Martell
An idiosyncratic FBI agent investigates the murder of a young woman in the even more idiosyncratic town of Twin Peaks. (This standalone version of the series pilot was produced for the European VHS market and has an alternate, closed ending.)
Dream a Little Dream
Gena Ettinger
Bobby Kellar has a crush on Lainie Diamond, girlfriend of school jerk Joel. Coleman is working on an experiment which will help him move into a place where Dreams are reality. When an accident occurs Coleman finds himself in Bobby's body and can only contact Bobby in his dreams.
Mother, Mother
Martha Cousins
A Blue Ribbon winner at the American Film Festival, this hard-hitting, dramatic production is about the relationship between a young man with AIDS and his estranged mother. Unable to understand or accept each other's lives, mother and son are at a stalemate of their own making.
Go Toward the Light
Margo
A young couple faces the realities of life with their child who is diagnosed with AIDS.
Tiger Warsaw
Frances Warsaw
Chuck brought sorrow to his family when he shot his father who is now a semi-invalid. After 15 years of self destruction, he returns home to seek forgiveness.
Appointment with Death
Emily Boynton
Emily Boynton, the stepmother to three children, blackmails the family lawyer into destroying a second will of her late husband that would have freed the children from her dominating influence. She takes herself, the children, and her daughter-in-law on holiday to Europe and the Holy Land. At a dig, Emily is found dead and Hercule Poirot investigates.
Distortions
Margot Caldwell
A man goes to speak with a gigolo and is promptly beaten for his trouble. Soon afterward, his wife is told that he burned to death in a car wreck and is shown the body...and that's when she starts seeing strange men at the corner of her vision, while her friend does all she can to convince her she's going insane!
Promise
Annie Gilbert
Bob returns home for his mother’s funeral knowing that he must fulfill a promise made 30 years earlier—to care for his younger brother DJ, who is schizophrenic. When Bob eventually takes over responsibility for his younger brother’s well-being, he embarks upon the most difficult challenge of his life.
Children of a Lesser God
Mrs. Norman
Starting his new job as an instructor at a New England school for the deaf, James Leeds meets Sarah Norman, a young deaf woman who works at the school as a member of the custodial staff. In spite of Sarah's withdrawn emotional state, a romance slowly develops between the pair.
Toughlove
Darlene Marsh
The Charters family falls into despair over their drug-addicted son Gary. They discuss his problems through the "Toughlove" program in searching for answers.
Love, Mary
Christine Groda
A teen, who is always in trouble in school and has been sent to reform school, turns her life around when a counselor discovers she is dyslexic.
Return to Oz
Aunt Em
Dorothy, saved from a psychiatric experiment by a mysterious girl, finds herself back in the land of her dreams, and makes delightful new friends, and dangerous new enemies.
Terror in the Aisles
Margaret White (archive footage) (uncredited)
A non-stop roller coaster ride through the scariest moments of the greatest terror films of all time.
Mae West
Matilda West
Biography of the curvaceous and sharp-witted actress who scandalized Broadway and Hollywood in the 1920s-30s with her frank approach to sex.
The Bunker
Magda Goebbels
Dramatization depicting the events surrounding Adolf Hitler's last weeks in and around his underground bunker in Berlin before and during the battle for the city.
Macbeth
Lady Macbeth
An adaptation of Shakespeare's play.
Skag
Jo Skagska
Pete "Skag" Skagska is a 56-year-old union foreman of a Pittsburgh steel mill until a crippling stroke forces him to stay home and try to put his life back together and deal with family problems.
Tim
Mary Horton
Handsome but backward gardener Tim Melville has a new woman in his life. She is Mary, his widowed employer, a woman who had given up on love until she had found Tim. At first they are friends. But soon they become lovers, as Mary, drawn to Tim's innocence and magnetism, begins to teach him all about life - and love.
Rainbow
Ethel Gumm
The early life and struggles of Judy Garland (portrayed by Andrea McArdle), and of the film star's trials as a youngster in dealing with the Movie Studio system that held her back while her mother was forever pushing her to excel.
The Boss' Son
Elaine
Bobby Rose has just returned home after graduating business school. He agrees to start working for his father, a successful carpet manufacturer. Bobby's dreams of a cushy junior exec position are quashed when he's told to report to the shipping department, where he's trained as a delivery driver. Learning the business from the ground up embitters Bobby, as well as his coworkers, some of whom, he discovers, are stealing from the company.
In the Matter of Karen Ann Quinlan
Julie Quinlan
Based on a true case, this tells the story of two parents in New Jersey whose daughter has lapsed into a coma from which doctors say she will never recover. The parents must decide whether to keep her alive on life support systems, or to disconnect them and let her die with some dignity left.
Ruby
Ruby
Strange killings occur at Ruby's drive-in theatre, sixteen years after the murder of her gangster boyfriend.
Carrie
Margaret White
Carrie White, a shy and troubled teenage girl who is tormented by her high school peers and her fanatically religious mother, begins to use her powers of telekinesis to exact revenge upon them.
The Hustler
Sarah Packard
Fast Eddie Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats to a high-stakes match.
Days of Wine and Roses
Kirsten Arnesen Clay
An alcoholic falls in love with and gets married to a young woman whom he systematically addicts to booze so they can share his "passion" together.
Until They Sail
Delia Leslie Friskett
Four sisters in New Zealand fall for four U.S. soldiers en route to the Pacific theater in WWII.
Kelly and Me
Mina Van Runkle
Failing vaudeville performer, Len, is taken under the wing of the German Shepherd wonder dog, Kelly, and a new act is born. Len hopes all his dreams are coming true when he finds himself in Hollywood ... but Kelly is the one in demand on the big screen.
Allen in Movieland
Self
TV goes Hollywood when Steve Allen visits Universal-International to prepare for his upcoming title role in "The Benny Goodman Story."
Ain't Misbehavin'
Sarah Hatfield
Rowdy young girl crashes high society when wealthy older man falls for her.
Smoke Signal
Laura Evans
Capt. Harper's cavalry patrol returns to the fort to find it besieged by Ute Indians. The apparent cause is the recapture of Army traitor Brett Halliday, who deserted to the Utes in a previous war; but Brett has a different story. With capture imminent, the only chance for the surviving men (and one woman) is to boat down a wild, uncharted river, where Harper and Halliday must pull together, like it or not.
Dawn at Socorro
Rannah Hayes
Brett Wade, gambler, gunslinger, and classical pianist, is wounded in a gunfight with the Ferris clan; the doctor finds signs of tuberculosis. En route to Colorado for his health, Brett stops in Socorro, New Mexico along with Ferris gunfighter Jimmy Rapp. Sheriff Couthen fears another shootout, but what Brett has in mind is saving waif-with-a-past Rannah Hayes from a life as one of Dick Braden's saloon girls.
Johnny Dark
Liz Fielding
A young auto racer competes in a Canada-to-Mexico race in a car he designed himself. Director George Sherman's 1954 film stars Tony Curtis, Piper Laurie, Don Taylor, Sidney Blackmer, Paul Kelly, Ilka Chase and Joseph Sawyer.
Dangerous Mission
Louise Graham
A policeman tries to protect a young woman against a hit man, when she flees New York after witnessing a mob killing.
The Golden Blade
Khairuzan
Harum is a fearless man of the people who comes to Bagdad to avenge the murder of his father and meets Krairuzan, a princess disguised as a commoner, working against a plot by a band of evil schemers trying to do away with her father, the Caliph. She gives Harum a golden sword which, in his hands, makes him invincible. Harum uses the sword in the name of justice and is doing quite well until a duplicate sword is placed in his scabbard during one of his off-guard moments, and he winds up in chains.
The Mississippi Gambler
Angelique Dureau
Mark Fallon, with partner Kansas John Polly, tries to introduce honest gambling on the riverboats. His first success makes enemies of the crooked gamblers and of fair Angelique Dureau, whose necklace he won. Later in New Orleans, Mark befriends Angelique's father, but she still affects to despise him as his gambling career brings him wealth. Duelling, tragedy, and romantic complications follow.
Son of Ali Baba
Kiki / Princess Azura
In ancient Persia the son of Ali Baba (of forty thieves fame), Kashma Baba is a military cadet by day and a party goer by night. He falls for a girl who he later finds is an escaped slave girl belonging to the wicked Caliph. They flee to his father's palace. But alas, there's more to her than meets the eye. Will the evil schemers succeed? The sons of the Forty Thieves to the rescue!
Has Anybody Seen My Gal?
Millicent Blaisdell
When a 1920s millionaire tests the fiber of his Vermont family, a young lady and her boyfriend feel the repercussions.
No Room for the Groom
Lee Kingshead
Alvah, a young GI who happens to own a vineyard, elopes to Las Vegas with Lee, his housekeeper's daughter. But Alvah's chicken pox postpone the wedding night. The rest revolves around more delays to the consummation, caused by Lee's manipulative Mama and the flock of mostly obnoxious relatives with whom she's filled the house.
The Prince Who Was a Thief
Tina
An Arabian prince, kidnapped at birth and raised as a thief, plots to regain his throne from his evil uncle in this colorful costume adventure.
Francis Goes to the Races
Frances Travers
In this funny sequel to the popular Francis the Talking Mule, the talkative Mule and his pal Peter get a job working on a horse-breeder's ranch. They end up saving it from financial ruin when Francis, who has the inside track with the racehorses, provides Peter with names of the winners before the races are run. Sure enough Peter finds himself with a fistful of cash and uses it to buy a racehorse for the farm. Unfortunately, the horse he chooses is suffering from a debilitating lack of confidence. When not dealing with the mare, Peter finds time to court the horse breeder's niece and trying to avoid the gangsters who want in on the winnings.
The Milkman
Chris Abbott
A dairy owner's son takes a job as milkman with a rival company.
Louisa
Cathy Norton
Architect Hal Norton and wife Meg invite his widowed mother Louisa to move in with them, only to discover the sweet elderly lady is romantically involved with what seems to be every old coot in town.