The morning after Piper Laurie received her Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for her electrifying performance as the demented, religious hysteric mother in "Carrie" [her first movie in 15 years], she was sitting in her sun-drenched living room. It's in a rented, tacky but inviting old Spanish house perched precariously on the edge of the Pacific Palisades. She was going through a small cardboard box of snapshots she just came across.
There was a lifetime of family photos on her lap. Pigtailed little Rosetta Jacobs, daughter of a Los Angeles furniture salesman, posed somewhat shyly in front of an old Venice apartment house and, at a later age, in front of a comfortable-looking house on St. Andrews Place. And then, a shot of her as a pretty starlet, renamed Piper Laurie by Universal. She was joyously greeting relatives upon her arrival in Detroit, her hometown.
Proved a Serious Actress
[Piper Laurie hates her professional name. Family and friends call her Rosie.]
After finally getting out of her contract at Universal, where she made a series of forgettable films, she went to New York and proved herself a serious actress on stage and TV. She got her second Emmy nomination as the alcoholic wife in "Days of Wine and Roses" and worked occasionally at the Actors Studio where she was seen by the late director Robert Rossen. He cast her opposite Paul Newman in "The Hustler" as a self destructive cripple.
Despite accolades for her portrayal, she received offers only for similar parts and therefore returned to the stage and TV. By now married to writer and onetime Newsweek film critic, Joseph Morgenstern, she saw her career wane. Just before "Carrie," she played pioneer birth control advocate Margaret Sanger in "A Woman's Rebel," a film made for public TV and last summer appeared in a summer stock production of the John Guare play, Marco Polo Sings a Solo," which has now opened on Broadway. Recently she completed Curtis Harrington's "Ruby," in which she has the starring role.
Wearing a print caftan and a scarf that hid her auburn hair and not a trace of makeup, Miss Laurie set aside her photos to summon Morgenstern from his study and to introduce their little girl, Anna, found perusing "The Jaws Notebook" on her parents bed.
"I'm getting a kick out of this," admitted Miss Laurie. "I had no response when I was nominated for "The Hustler"- and that was for best actress. But then this is the first time when I've really enjoyed the process of acting. With "The Hustler" it was so painful because of my need for perfection and the need to prove myself, after all those years of being bad in bad movies. But now I'm having fun.
"Just a year ago back in Woodstock, our home, both Joe and I had a horrible flu and it was a bitter winter. I thought that was it, that they would be going with somebody else for "Carrie." I thought, "Here I have this awful cold and I'm blowing my first movie in 15 years! But Brian De Palma said he'd wait till I was well." She and De Palma were brought together through their agents. As the mother of a high school girl (Sissy Spacek), she is so intense a religious fanatic, equating sex with sin, that she doesn't even tell her scorned, miserable daughter the facts of life.
"It was also a chance to work with one of the new inventive directors." she says. "I took it as an act of faith. Frankly, I thought it was a comedy and my part was particularly broad. During my first few days of rehearsal I had the usual inhibitions. I always feel like I've never acted before, when I start something new. I don't know where to begin. I feel so exposed, so inhibited. But then something magical happens. I got such a bang out of playing this part! In retrospect I think it's because it was a chance to act out adolescent- even earlier- fears. You have this childish desire to be the most evil person in the world, and here I could act out the most horrible things of my imagination! I did not intellectualize it. I allowed for the bigness that I could have gone either way: out and out comedy or a bigger-than-life effect. Brian and I never spoke about this, but as it turned out, that was what he was going to tell me! I don't think 'Carrie' has reached its full audience, and that's why I'm so amazed I got the nomination.
"People are very open with me about the film on the street, and I like that, it's something new for me. I took Annie ice skating the other day and the kid behind the counter did a double-take, he jumped back when he recognized me. He said, 'My girlfriend was so beside herself, she completely identified with Carrie. She said, 'I was really Carrie.' A lot of people feel that way.
"I also think there's another reason for the film's success. There's that delicious scare just at the end, and the last few moments of a movie are important for word of mouth. But I wish people could know of its lyricism and its other qualities- that it's not the film that many people think it is. I hope the fact that Sissy and I both got nominations will add another texture to the promotion of the movie. Maybe our nominations will give it respectability!"
I'm also a little afraid of the way 'Ruby's being sold; because it's a thriller. I like that line from the trade ad that describes the film as 'A love affair with the supernatural.' I'm not so happy with them saying 'She was frightening in "Carrie," she is terrifying in "Ruby," Piper Laurie is Ruby.'
"Ruby's a kind of theatrical lady. She's got lots of men at her command. She was the head of a gang, back in the 30's. The film takes place in the 50's, and all these criminals are now out of prison and running this drive-in for her. I've been a singer- a songstress. It's gotta be fun! If it isn't fun it doesn't work."
"In both 'Carrie' and 'Ruby' I've had the good luck to work with people who sensed my needs, who knew I liked to be left alone as much as possible. I mean by that that I don't like to talk a part. I do all my intellectual work at home. That's all out of the way when I come on the set. Once you're there you should just do it. Maybe I've just grown up, matured, becoming a mother. But I felt very free with Curtis and Brian. They gave me the gift of allowing me to believe in myself."
Such self-confidence has been hard-won over a long period of time during what she has come to think of as three seperate careers. Lying about her age, she joined a semiprofessional acting group while still a student at L.A. High (she was graduated in 1950). She landed a screen test at Warners at a time when the studio was laying off contract players and wasn't about to hire her. But at least she got footage of herself, in a scene from Tennessee Williams' "This Property is Condemned," that got her to Universal.
"They made another test", she recalls. "Rock Hudson and I tested togeher. I can still remember the line I had to say to Rock: "I love you like this, all stirred up and your eyes full of fire.' Ha! Well, they signed both of us. Rock was a very nice man: I haven't sen him for years. I didn't think I had the right to protest this name they gave me. I was an inexperienced, sheltered, grateful 17-year-old who'd been given a seven-year contract. They tore it up after nine months and extended it and extended it for more money. They were offering me money to act- I couldn't believe it!
"I had had serious plans to go East and study. I think there was a great deal of time wasted. I always took myself seriously as an actress. If I had gone East I would have had a different background. I think I would have had some kind of success simply because I was so determined. I like working hard.
"At Universal during my first movie I was called in by the producer saying that the director was complaining that I was bringing ideas to him. I got a lot of that."
That first picture, "Louisa," starring Spring Byington also involved Miss Laurie in a publicity gimmick that will probably always be associated with her- eating flower salads.
"It started with marigolds," she says. "In the movie Charles Coburn or Edmund Gwenn was mixing this salad and put some in. A publicist thought it would make a great story if I really would eat flowers. So I started nibbling away at them during interviews and they took photographs. I used to take having done this so seriously. It seemed so symbolic of everything I later tried to get rid of for so many years, but I've mellowed and find it amusing."
Just before "The Hustler" was released, Miss Laurie met Morgenstern. "He came to interview me- that's how we met," says Miss Laurie. He'd seen me in the theater, but we didn't meet for a year. When I'm not quite sure about a choice I've made, I try to get an objective opinion from him. I try to talk as little as possible about my work at home to keep that objectivity. That's important to me, and I try to preserve that as much as possible."
"Life became much more interesting. I had other interests and feelings, none of them connected with the theater or acting. But now if there's any way possible for us all to be together, we should be. Frankly, no one else at this point could replace me with Annie, but it won't always be that way. She's a strong, wonderfully well-adjusted kid."
The Morgensterns have been living here since June and are beginning to think seriously of settling her permanently. Morgenstern is working on a play and on a script for Miss Laurie, who yearns for a romantic role after two thrillers.