Rosetta Jacobs

Piper Laurie was born Rosetta Jacobs in Detroit to Jewish immigrant parents from Russia and Poland. Signed to Universal Pictures at age seventeen, she rebelled against fluffy starlet roles by walking away from Hollywood in 1955 to train on the New York stage and in live Golden Age television drama.

She returned triumphantly in 1961 as the tragic, alcoholic Sarah Packard in Robert Rossen's poolroom classic The Hustler opposite Paul Newman, earning her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress. After another voluntary decade-long hiatus raising her family in upstate New York, Laurie delivered an unforgettable, terrifying performance as the religious extremist mother Margaret White in Brian De Palma's horror classic Carrie (1976), earning a second Oscar nomination. She garnered a third Academy Award nomination for Children of a Lesser God (1986) and won a Golden Globe as the scheming Catherine Martell in David Lynch's cult series Twin Peaks.