Piper Laurie dead at 91: Carrie and Twin Peaks actress passes away after Emmy winner’s recent health struggles
TWIN Peaks star Piper Laurie has died at the age of 91.
The beloved actress had a successful career, with several Oscar and Emmy nominations.
Piper died Saturday morning in Los Angeles after feeling unwell for a long time, a rep said to the Hollywood Reporter.
Piper may be best known for her Oscar-nominated cutthroat role in the adaptation of the Stephen King novel Carrie, playing the title character's mother in the 1976 horror classic.
She was also nominated for a Best Actress Oscar years earlier, when she played Paul Newman's girlfriend, Sarah Packard, in The Hustler.
On the small screen, Piper won a Golden Globe for her gender-flipping performance as Catherine Martell in the cult-classic television series Twin Peaks.
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Piper's manager, Marion Rosenberg, described her as "one of the most remarkable and versatile actresses of her day," and a "brilliant and creative mind, and a glorious human being."
Piper was married to Wall Street Journal movie critic Joe Morgenstern.
They met shortly after the release of The Hustler when Joe interviewed her about the film.
Nine months later, they were married, and in 1971, they adopted a daughter, Anne Grace Morgenstern.
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In her memoir Learning to Live Out Loud, she dropped several dating bombshells, including revealing that she lost her virginity to Ronald Reagan and years later slept with Mel Gibson when she was twice his age.
Piper's passing comes on the heels of another loss in the sci-ci world.
Earlier this week, Phyllis Coates, who played the original Lois Lane in the 1950s series Adventures of Superman, died at 96.
Phyllis passed away from natural causes on Wednesday at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, her daughter Laura Press told The Hollywood Reporter.
Phyllis was best known for starring alongside George Reeves in the black-and-white series Adventures of Superman which was aired on screens from 1952 to 1958.
She starred in all 26 episodes of the first season of the series but was later replaced by Noel Neill.
But she prided herself on the impressive stunt work she had mastered.
“We were nearly blown up, beaten up, exploded, exploited — I guess it was because we were young and dumb, but we put up with a lot of stuff,” Coates said in an interview with Tom Weaver for the book Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes.
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“Not too long ago I saw [the episode ‘Night of Terror’] where I got knocked out!”
The show had been on air for six seasons with a seventh planned but was canceled after Reeves' death at age 45 in 1959.
