Piper Laurie

Her presence onscreen was beauty and magnetism, her experimental performances were mischief and insight. Piper Laurie died at the age of 91 on Saturday. I'd recently watched her in The Faculty, a 1998 Robert Rodriguez movie in which she plays a modest high school teacher who becomes a sinister, vivacious alien. She was brilliant as both.

In the role I know her best for, as Catherine Martell on my favourite TV show, Twin Peaks, she also had the opportunity to play two roles and it can be fairly said she disappeared into one of them.

I can't find any of her best, non-spoilery, scenes from Twin Peaks on YouTube. I'd upload one myself but, with my lousy internet, it would take all day and I wouldn't be able to do anything else online. I'm particularly fond of the bedroom scene between her and Richard Beymer in the second episode. But here she is with Jack Nance, playing her husband, Pete.

He's so weird and twitchy and she's always razor sharp. You get the impression of two kinds of intellect crashing against each other.

Laurie started her career as the beautiful alcoholic girl opposite Paul Newman in The Hustler (1961), a completely different performance. She certainly had range but she was consistently captivating.

Twitter Sonnet #1749

A simple gate can ferry dogs to Hell.
Confusing closets carry guns and hearts.
And something else that rings a silver bell.
The haunted crystals fill the shopping carts.
Of quiet names, the sparrow speaks to cool.
Resulting waves were tamped to placid glass.
For where the keel could cut's a standing pool.
In dreams, parades of pandas duly pass.
A touch of glacier tied the hill to land.
When stealing stones, observe the swaying grass.
As roots entwine the softest bed of sand.
A parcel waits to sate the anxious lass.
The sound of sawing wood's an eerie song.
Chameleon beauties stretch the hours long.