CNN
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Piper Laurie, the celebrated actress known for her chilling portrayal of the overbearingly religious mother in “Carrie” and for playing Paul Newman’s down-in-the-dumps girlfriend in “The Hustler,” has died at 91, her manager said.
Laurie died early Saturday in Los Angeles, her manager, Marion Rosenberg, confirmed to CNN. No cause of death was provided.
Laurie will be remembered as “one of the finest actresses of her generation and a superb human being,” Rosenberg said.
Turner Classic Movies, which, like CNN, is part of Warner Brothers Discovery, called Laurie “one of the most celebrated and formidable actresses of the last half-century.” The network said she “gave full-blooded performances as flawed, often ferocious women.”
Critics and colleagues took note: Laurie received Academy Award nominations for her riveting performances in “The Hustler” and “Carrie.” She was also nominated for an Oscar for playing a remorseful mother in “Children of a Lesser God” and received a Golden Globe Award for her role in television’s “Twin Peaks.”
Born as Rosetta Jacobs in Detroit in 1932, she assumed the name Piper Laurie at the urging of a manager when she began professionally acting as a teen, she wrote in her memoir, “Learning to Live Out Loud.”
After starting a contract with Universal-International (now Universal Studios) at age 18, Laurie starred opposite actors including Ronald Reagan, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis and Newman.
She took a 15-year hiatus from Hollywood after breaking her contract in the mid 1950s, but later returned to deliver a tormenting portrayal of the fanatically evangelical mother in “Carrie.”
