Piper Laurie

Piper Laurie

Early in her acting career, Laurie played lighthearted characters in costume dramas. For her first major role, in The Hustler (1961), she won an Oscar nomination. After marrying critic Joseph Morgenstern in 1962, Laurie took a break from acting but later emerged in more serious character roles in television (the series Twin Peaks, 1990–91) and film (Carrie, 1976; Children of a Lesser God, 1986; she was an Oscar nominee for both). Her recent work includes Rich in Love (1993), Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1994), and Bad Blood (2006), and on television in Inherit the Wind (1999) and episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Cold Case, and Dead Like Me.