Film & TV / Theatre & dance
Piper Laurie
1932–2023 · actress
Three-time Oscar nominee (The Hustler, Carrie, Children of a Lesser God) who was born Rosetta Jacobs in a one-bedroom walk-up on Detroit's Tyler Street.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Los Angeles, California
aged 91- Birth name
- Rosetta Jacobs
- Detroit years
- 1932–1930s
- Field
- Film & TV, Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Piper Laurie was born Rosetta Jacobs in Detroit in 1932, the younger daughter of furniture dealer Alfred Jacobs and his wife Charlotte. In her 2011 memoir Learning to Live Out Loud she wrote that she was born at home, in the family's one-bedroom walk-up on Tyler Street. The family later moved to Los Angeles, where she took elocution lessons to overcome shyness and signed with Universal as a teenager. Frustrated by decorative ingenue parts, she left Hollywood for New York and serious drama, and returned in triumph as Sarah Packard opposite Paul Newman in The Hustler (1961). She then largely stepped away from acting before a startling comeback as the fanatical mother in Carrie (1976). Later work included Children of a Lesser God, The Thorn Birds and Catherine Martell in Twin Peaks. She won an Emmy for Promise (1986) and died in Los Angeles in 2023, aged 91.
Highlights
- Oscar nominations for The Hustler (1961), Carrie (1976) and Children of a Lesser God (1986)
- Emmy Award for the TV film Promise (1986)
- Golden Globe for Twin Peaks, as Catherine Martell
- Memoir Learning to Live Out Loud (2011) recalls her Detroit birth
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Born here · 1932
Birthplace walk-up on Tyler Street
Status being checked
In her memoir she recalled being born in the family's one-bedroom walk-up on Tyler Street, on Detroit's west side. Exact address not published.