Piper Laurie, best known for her role as the incredibly controlling and devout mother in the 1976 horror film “Carrie,” died Saturday. She was 91.
The three-time Oscar nominee’s longtime manager, Marion Rosenberg, told Entertainment Weekly that Laurie was “one of the most remarkable and versatile actresses of her day, a brilliant and creative mind, and a glorious human being.”
She told The Post that Laurie was “one of the great talents of her generation, in addition to being a magnificent human being.”
According to Rosenberg, the actress died of a long, unspecified illness at her home in Los Angeles.
Born Rosetta Jacobs on Jan. 22, 1932, Laurie changed her name after she landed a contract with Universal Studios in 1949.
The following year, the Detroit native starred opposite former President Ronald Reagan in the comedy “Louisa.”
She would co-star with several Hollywood icons, such as Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis and Tyrone Power, before moving from Tinseltown to a farmhouse in Woodstock, New York.
“I was disenchanted and looking for an existence more meaningful for me,” Laurie said in an interview in 1990. “My life was full, I always liked using my hands, and I always painted.”
Laurie was nominated for her first Academy Award, for Best Actress, for the 1961 drama “The Hustler” starring Paul Newman.
15 years later, Laurie was nominated for her second Oscar, for “Carrie,” which is based on the best-selling Stephen King novel.
Her third nomination was for Best Supporting Actress for 1986’s “Children of a Lesser God.”
Laurie continued to act in several projects, including the David Lynch cult-classic “Twin Peaks,” which earned her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television in 1990.
Several fans mourned her death on social media.
“She was my first onscreen mother and she was celebrated way before we worked together including 3 @TheAcademy Award nominations,” praised actress Marlee Matlin, 58, on X. “I’ll never forget her kind, sweet spirit and fierce talent. RIP Piper Laurie.”
“RIP Piper Laurie, an actor who so often made films a little stranger, bristlier and more interesting for her presence, and who deserved better than what the industry gave her at the peak of her powers,” wrote a second person.
“Sitting for an hour with Piper Laurie at last year’s TCM Classic Film Festival is a memory I will forever cherish,” remembered Turner Classic Movies host Dave Karger. “Her Oscar-nominated performance in Children of a Lesser God always moves me. I’m so sad to hear she passed but am grateful that her beautiful work will live on.”
Piper is survived by her daughter, Anne Grace Morgenstern, whom she adopted with ex-husband Joe Morgenstern, a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic who wrote for The Wall Street Journal.
