Full list by date of death

Piper Laurie

Actress

Born - 22 January 1932, Detroit, Michigan, USA
Died - 14 October 2023

Red-haired, hazel-eyed, thrice Oscar-nominated American actress, born Rosetta Jacobs, and one of the most sparkling and shapeliest of Universal's 1950s' starlets, in leading roles from her first Hollywood year. At first pigeonholed into the studio's entertaining but shallow easterns, westerns and comedies, often opposite Tony Curtis, she broke her studio contract and proved herself a serious actress in such TV dramas as the original The Days of Wine and Roses before winning her first Oscar nod for her tragic character in The Hustler (1961). Early work includes Louisa (1950), The Prince Who Was a Thief (1950), Francis Goes to the Races (1951), Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952), Son of Ali Baba (1952), The Mississippi Gambler (1953), The Golden Blade (1953), Dawn at Socorro (1954), Smoke Signal (1955) and Until They Sail (1957). After marriage to movie critic Joe Morgenstern in 1962, she returned to acting in the 1970s in leading character roles: Carrie (1976), Ruby (1977), The Boss's Son (1978), Tim (1978), Return to Oz (1986), Children of a Lesser God (1987), Appointment With Death (1988), Other People's Money (1991), Rich in Love (1992), The Grass Harp (1995), St Patrick's Day (1997), The Faculty (1998), Eulogy (2004), The Dead Girl (2006), Hesher (2010), Bad Blood (2012), Snapshots (2017) and White Boy Rick (2018), her last. Winner of an Emmy for the TV movie Promise in 1986, she also received praise for her down-to-earth, self-penned autobiography Learning to Live Out Loud in 2011. Survived by her ex-husband Morgenstern (divorced 1982) and a daughter.