Splendor In The Grass:
The Truimph Of Piper Laurie
By Bert Osborne
Splendor In The Grass
If it didn't sound like such an obituary, you could say that The Grass Harp is something of a culmination in the career of
Piper Laurie. After more than 45 years in the business, with roughly 35 movies (and three Oscar nominations) to her
credit, the 64-year-old actress now finds herself at the very heart of this new film, in a leading-lady departure from most
of her character roles of the past 20 years. "It was nice to have so much to do, and I hadn't had that pleasure for a long,
long time," she admits during a recent interview.
"I wish I could say that I hand-picked it, but it didn't quite happen that way," Laurie continues. "I first heard about the
project a year or so before the actual filming began. Everyone had been sitting around just waiting to hear when the
money was going to come together. Joan Plowright had originally agreed to do the role, but by the time the financing
came through, she was no longer available. They called me just 10 days before shooting was scheduled to begin."
The film was shot outside Montgomery, Ala., in the spring of 1995, and it started playing the film-festival circuit that fall.
One year later, Fine Line Features is finally going ahead with its release. Laurie acknowledges a certain frustration in
having some of her best work to date withheld for so long. She confesses, "After a while, it started to seem like a dream.
I'd think, 'Did I really do that movie?' The whole history of the movie was that way, though, from making it to releasing
it."
Based on the autobiographical novella by Truman Capote, The Grass Harp tells the story of
an orphaned boy (played as a teen by T2's Edward Furlong) who's raised by his two aunts
in a small Southern town during the Depression -- one (Sissy Spacek) a hard-nosed spinster,
and the other (Laurie) a warm-spirited innocent. The all-star ensemble also features Walter
Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Mary Steenburgen, Nell Carter, Charles Durning, Roddy
McDowall and Joe Don Baker, under the direction of first-timer Charles Matthau (Walter's
son).
The director's casting sense is decidedly incestuous, and not just because he hired his own
father. Laurie, for example, is reunited with her Carrie co-star Spacek, who's reunited with
her Missing co-star Lemmon, who's reunited with his frequent movie partner Matthau.
Laurie did a cameo opposite Lemmon in TNT's A Life in the Theater, and she also
appeared with Steenburgen in Showtime's Tender is the Night. Steenburgen and McDowall
both appeared in Dead of Winter and, although they've never worked together, he and
Laurie happen to be friends from way back.
Now playing sisters, she and Spacek essentially reverse their Oscar-nominated roles from
Carrie, in which Laurie was the domineering mother to Spacek's timid daughter. "It was a
terrific joy to be working with Sissy again. I feel a real connection to her that goes beyond the fact that we've acted
together before. She got to get back at me for being so mean to her in Carrie. She hated having to exhibit such horrible
behavior, and sometimes I'd have to remind her that I'd dragged her around by her hair in Carrie," Laurie recalls with a
laugh.
Carrie (1976) marked Laurie's return to the screen after a 15-year absence. An unchallenged '50s starlet (No Room for
the Groom, Son of Ali Baba, Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, etc.), she broke her contract with Universal and left
Hollywood for New York, where she proved her "dramatic worth" in the live television dramas of the late '50s and early
'60s (including the original Days of Wine and Roses). Laurie made one more film, the 1961 classic The Hustler (which
earned the actress her first Oscar nod), and then she semi-retired to marry former movie critic Joseph Morgenstern.
Among her more notable post-Carrie performances: the older woman who falls in love with the younger Mel Gibson in
Tim; a vivacious hairdresser opposite Albert Finney in Rich in Love; a flirtatious love interest for Richard Harris in
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway; the dedicated secretary of Gregory Peck in Other People's Money; Marlee Matlin's
misguided mother in Children of a Lesser God (Oscar nomination No. 3); and, on TV, a regular role in David Lynch's
short-lived cult series "Twin Peaks."
Obviously, Laurie has come a long way from frolicking in costume adventures alongside the likes of Tony Curtis and
Rock Hudson. Over the last four decades, she has come to appreciate those earlier films, although back then she was
hardly amused. "I'll never forget the day somebody from the Universal publicity office handed me a scrap of paper with
the words Piper and Laurie written on it," recounts the actress, who was born Rosetta Jacobs.
"I didn't know it was supposed to be a name, and I was the brunt of a lot of jokes at the time because of that name. 'Did
you hear the one about the guy who went into the bar? He ordered a Piper Laurie.' Or, they'd send me out on tours to
promote my movies. 'Introducing Universal's newest starlet, Miss Piper Cub!' 'Presenting, Miss Peter Laurie!'"
After a pause, she elaborates, "I was just miserable having to pretend to be this glamorous starlet. I wasn't allowed to
step out of the house without looking like a movie star. And the work was plain silly. When I see them now on late-night
TV, I have a certain affection for them. This many years later, I can enjoy just looking at them. Actually, I'm quite
touched by that young Piper Laurie I see, and the fact that she survived."
Laurie's approach to her work has mellowed through the years, as well. "Now, acting is just a lot more fun to me, instead
of those intense things I felt I needed to do before to prove myself," she explains. "I can actually enjoy it now, and I feel
freer. It's not the life-or-death proposition it used to be. I didn't know the meaning of the word compromise before, but
now I think I've learned there's more than one way to do something and to do it well.
"That's something I've learned through carving stone, a hobby I took up during my 15 years away from the business.
When you have a big piece of marble and you screw it up, you can turn the whole thing over this way or that way and
start over from scratch to make something else out of it. I guess that can apply to any kind of creative work."
The pictures in this page are given to me by Anders Mathias Breinholm.
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If it didn't sound like such an obituary, you could say that The Grass Harp is something of a culmination in the career of Piper Laurie. After more than 45 years in the business, with roughly 35 movies (and three Oscar nominations) to her credit, the 64-year-old actress now finds herself at the very heart of this new film, in a leading-lady departure from most of her character roles of the past 20 years. "It was nice to have so much to do, and I hadn't had that pleasure for a long, long time," she admits during a recent interview. "I wish I could say that I hand-picked it, but it didn't quite happen that way," Laurie continues. "I first heard about the project a year or so before the actual filming began. Everyone had been sitting around just waiting to hear when the money was going to come together. Joan Plowright had originally agreed to do the role, but by the time the financing came through, she was no longer available. They called me just 10 days before shooting was scheduled to begin."
The film was shot outside Montgomery, Ala., in the spring of 1995, and it started playing the film-festival circuit that fall. One year later, Fine Line Features is finally going ahead with its release. Laurie acknowledges a certain frustration in having some of her best work to date withheld for so long. She confesses, "After a while, it started to seem like a dream. I'd think, 'Did I really do that movie?' The whole history of the movie was that way, though, from making it to releasing it."
Based on the autobiographical novella by Truman Capote, The Grass Harp tells the story of an orphaned boy (played as a teen by T2's Edward Furlong) who's raised by his two aunts in a small Southern town during the Depression -- one (Sissy Spacek) a hard-nosed spinster, and the other (Laurie) a warm-spirited innocent. The all-star ensemble also features Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Mary Steenburgen, Nell Carter, Charles Durning, Roddy McDowall and Joe Don Baker, under the direction of first-timer Charles Matthau (Walter's son).
The director's casting sense is decidedly incestuous, and not just because he hired his own father. Laurie, for example, is reunited with her Carrie co-star Spacek, who's reunited with her Missing co-star Lemmon, who's reunited with his frequent movie partner Matthau. Laurie did a cameo opposite Lemmon in TNT's A Life in the Theater, and she also appeared with Steenburgen in Showtime's Tender is the Night. Steenburgen and McDowall both appeared in Dead of Winter and, although they've never worked together, he and Laurie happen to be friends from way back.
Now playing sisters, she and Spacek essentially reverse their Oscar-nominated roles from Carrie, in which Laurie was the domineering mother to Spacek's timid daughter. "It was a terrific joy to be working with Sissy again. I feel a real connection to her that goes beyond the fact that we've acted together before. She got to get back at me for being so mean to her in Carrie. She hated having to exhibit such horrible behavior, and sometimes I'd have to remind her that I'd dragged her around by her hair in Carrie," Laurie recalls with a laugh.
Carrie (1976) marked Laurie's return to the screen after a 15-year absence. An unchallenged '50s starlet (No Room for the Groom, Son of Ali Baba, Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, etc.), she broke her contract with Universal and left Hollywood for New York, where she proved her "dramatic worth" in the live television dramas of the late '50s and early '60s (including the original Days of Wine and Roses). Laurie made one more film, the 1961 classic The Hustler (which earned the actress her first Oscar nod), and then she semi-retired to marry former movie critic Joseph Morgenstern.
Among her more notable post-Carrie performances: the older woman who falls in love with the younger Mel Gibson in Tim; a vivacious hairdresser opposite Albert Finney in Rich in Love; a flirtatious love interest for Richard Harris in Wrestling Ernest Hemingway; the dedicated secretary of Gregory Peck in Other People's Money; Marlee Matlin's misguided mother in Children of a Lesser God (Oscar nomination No. 3); and, on TV, a regular role in David Lynch's short-lived cult series "Twin Peaks."
Obviously, Laurie has come a long way from frolicking in costume adventures alongside the likes of Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson. Over the last four decades, she has come to appreciate those earlier films, although back then she was hardly amused. "I'll never forget the day somebody from the Universal publicity office handed me a scrap of paper with the words Piper and Laurie written on it," recounts the actress, who was born Rosetta Jacobs. "I didn't know it was supposed to be a name, and I was the brunt of a lot of jokes at the time because of that name. 'Did you hear the one about the guy who went into the bar? He ordered a Piper Laurie.' Or, they'd send me out on tours to promote my movies. 'Introducing Universal's newest starlet, Miss Piper Cub!' 'Presenting, Miss Peter Laurie!'"
After a pause, she elaborates, "I was just miserable having to pretend to be this glamorous starlet. I wasn't allowed to step out of the house without looking like a movie star. And the work was plain silly. When I see them now on late-night TV, I have a certain affection for them. This many years later, I can enjoy just looking at them. Actually, I'm quite touched by that young Piper Laurie I see, and the fact that she survived." Laurie's approach to her work has mellowed through the years, as well. "Now, acting is just a lot more fun to me, instead of those intense things I felt I needed to do before to prove myself," she explains. "I can actually enjoy it now, and I feel freer. It's not the life-or-death proposition it used to be. I didn't know the meaning of the word compromise before, but now I think I've learned there's more than one way to do something and to do it well. "That's something I've learned through carving stone, a hobby I took up during my 15 years away from the business. When you have a big piece of marble and you screw it up, you can turn the whole thing over this way or that way and start over from scratch to make something else out of it. I guess that can apply to any kind of creative work."
The pictures in this page are given to me by Anders Mathias Breinholm.