This is Mrs. Goebbels?- No it's Piper Laurie, who plays Nazi's wife in TV drama by Betty Goodwin

Many, many years ago a budding actress under contract to Universal-International made her movie debut opposite a middling-big star named Ronald Reagan. The film, a romantic yarn, was "Louisa".
And the actress, Piper Laurie, is at a loss for words today on the subject of her 1950 co-star becoming president of the United States. After washing down three vitamins with iced tea, she pauses. "Well, I never thought it would happen. I don't know what I think. I certainly wish him the best. Politically, I'm not really aligned with him," continues the actress, who now make Pacific Palisades her home. "But I hope people are open and supportive. Personally, he has qualities that could be very useful to the American people- he's an idealist and essentially, I think, not politically motivated."
This fall, when "Louisa" was replayed on television election night, Laurie watched it with her 10-year old daughter, Annie. "She didn't expect me to be that pretty." says the actress, laughing. "And for a kid who's met Robin Williams, I don't think she was so impressed that I knew the future president.
Annie was definitely more impressed with her mother's newest project, a TV movie called "The Bunker," airing next Tuesday (KNXT- Channel 2, 8 p.m.)- though not because of the subject. Annie liked this one because she got to join her mother in Paris for several months of shooting last summer.
Others will find the subject engrossing. Based on the James O'Donnell book, "The Bunker," it dramatizes the final 10 days of the Third Reich. Laurie portrays Magda goebbels, wife of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels (Cliff Gorman), who killed her six children "probably with poison" hours before she took her own life. [The production stars Anthony Hopkins as Adolf Hitler, and other actors include Richard Jordan, Michael Lonsdale, Susan Blakely and James Naughton.]
"From the research I've done, Magda Goebbels was madly in love with Hitler- and the feeling was reciprocated," explains Laurie, who says she "checked out everything on Joseph Goebbels" in the Santa Monica Public Library. "There are dozens and dozens and dozens of books on Joseph, with a line here and a chapter there on Magda. I'm probably the biggest expert on Magda Goebbels in the world. And nobody cares." She laughs again. Pause. "Actually she's quite famous in Europe."
Laurie says Hitler didn't feel he could marry Magda- or anyone- because of his position, so to keep Magda close to him, the Fuhrer encouraged her to marriage to Goebbels. "The marriage to Eva Braun the day before his suicide was just the whim of an extremely sick man- well a sicker man." remarks Laurie.
"I've read about a lot of women like Magda, Margaret Sanger, who started the birth-control movement, did wonderful things for the world, but there was a sense of herself being bigger than life. Magda, too, felt that she wanted to achieve something extraordinary, if not first hand, then through the men in her life. also, I gather Hitler was a very charming man, though I don't know how I can utter those words, but apparently it was so. I think, after a time, he became a Christ figure to her. She worshipped him blindly. She was hypnotized by the man's logic. I was playing a woman who wasn't dealing with reality.
"Personally," Laurie adds, "I found it very difficult as a Jew. As a child I grew up having nightmares and dreams about killing Hitler- heroic dreams. I've always identified very much with being a Jew. The uniforms during filming, just the swastikas, were things I sort of had to get used to and not have a gut reaction to everytime I saw them."
Once described as a "pert leading lady of the '50's costume charades" because of her frivolous early roles, Laurie is now considered a serious actress of unusual ability who has been twice nominated for an Academy Award ["The Hustler," "Carrie"]. Before making "The Bunker", she had a continuing part on the ambitious but short-lived TV series, "Skag," but I really went into it against my better judgement. I thought I could create an interesting role model as a blue-collar wife. But it sort of petered out, and I'm glad it didn't go on any longer than it did. It would have meant a lot of frustration.
"I think the shooting schedules on TV for the most part, allow actors to do maybe one-fourth of what they might do in terms of quality if they had sufficient time. Sometimes when I watch TV, I see an extraordinary performance and say to myself, "My god, I don't know how they did it.' In some feature films you can see the care surrounding one simple moment and it makes it seem very important."
Obviously not a big one for TV. Piper Laurie made an exception for "The Bunker." I always feel that enlightenment about savagery is important," she says. "It's just part of me."