Learning to Live Out Loud: A Memoir

by Piper Laurie

An intimate memoir by three-time Oscar nominee Piper Laurie, one of Hollywood's most gifted and respected actressesAt the age of seventeen, in the glory days of movie-making, Piper Laurie was living every little girl’s dream. Having been selected by Universal Studios to be a contract star, Piper was removed from her acting class and provided with stylists, chaperones, leading roles, and handsome dates, and elevated to the heights of Hollywood. Her beauty was admired by the likes of Ronald Reagan, Howard Hughes, Paul Newman, Tony Curtis, as well as dozens of directors and legions of fans. Her name was emblazoned on marquees across America for hit movies of the fifties such as the The Prince Who Was a Thief, The Mississippi Gambler, and Ain’t Misbehavin’. But Piper discovered early on that the little girl’s dream was not her own. Mortified by the shallowness of the roles and movies she was given, she longed for the freedom and fulfillment of her own artistic vision. After years in the studio system, shy Piper Laurie found her voice and the courage to burn her contract. It was only after she left the oppressive studio culture that she began to star in the TV shows, plays, and films that truly became the hallmarks of her The Glass Menagerie on Broadway, the original Days of Wine and Roses, The Hustler, the iconic Carrie, and Twin Peaks. She grew into a three-time Oscar-nominated actress, an accomplished sculptor, and a director. This memoir is the inspiring tale of Piper’s perseverance to break from tradition and to practice her craft at the highest level. She started life as a withdrawn, mute child who couldn’t find her voice and was transformed into a woman who learned to live out loud by her own rules.

Genres: Autobiography, Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Biography, Film, Tv

386 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Piper Laurie (born Rosetta Jacobs; January 22, 1932 – October 14, 2023) was an American actress. She is known for her roles in the films The Hustler (1961), Carrie (1976), and Children of a Lesser God (1986), and the miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983).

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's hard for film stars to hit the right balance between 'TMI' and stinginess when they turn to their memoirs. I was very disappointed in Diane Keaton's scant recent bio for that reason. But Piper Laurie really hits it out of the park in a memoir up there with Lauren Bacall and David Niven's, in my opinion some of the best Hollywood tell-alls. Although Laurie describes suffering from severe anxiety and issues with speech articulation, her writing style is so relaxed and natural from the opening pages that you would never know. And while she was not one of Old Hollywood's top actresses, her life is fascinating -- she was one of Universal's last contract actresses, before leaving Hollywood for a stage career and then hitting her peak around middle age in truly rich screen roles, perhaps best known as the mother in Brian de Palma's Carrie.

A wonderful actress, a wonderful writer, and this is a wonderful Hollywood tell-all which I won't spoil for you but it includes lots of tidbits about Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, Sissy Spacek, and many more.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know kids, it's not every day you loose your virginity to Ronald Reagan.

Just saying.

Really good book. I can absolutely tell she wrote it herself. Has a particular cadence and voice.

After reading this, I feel like she's my spiritual sister. And I'm not even Jewish.

I'm being flip, but I loved this book.

[Samantha Glasser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piper Laurie was briefly a contract player at Universal, which is what sparked my interest in her. I had seen her in several films including Carrie and The Faculty but I was curious about her early career. My favorite of the Universal films I've seen her in is Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, a 1920s throwback starring Rock Hudson and Charles Coburn.

This book is well-written and interesting, giving us insight into Laurie's career choices and personal life. I admire her struggle to become a respected actress when it would have been easy to rest on her good looks and the security of her studio contract. After reading about it here, I watched her in the Playhouse 90 performance of The Days of Wine and Roses, and her efforts paid off. She is a powerful and talented woman. She is also open about the difficult moments in life, her addiction to uppers, and her experience with an unwanted pregnancy. Her treatment of these made me respect her tremendously.

She has a good sense of humor about herself and the way the studio chose to publicize her, including an insistence that she eat flowers and tell everyone about it. I also got a laugh out of the fact that she was once introduced as Miss Peter Lorre!

[Goose · Rating 3 out of 5]

What? Piper Laurie started doing movies when she was 18? I knew she had been around a bit once I knew who she was, but I didn't know she was that young. If you like this actress then you will probably like her memoir. I found her family life interesting even before she became famous. Her parents actually sent her away to live in a sanitarium when she was 3 just so she could keep her older sister, who had very bad asthma, company. Wow. Lots to like here though at times it's apparent that some things were held back.

[Raquel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piper Laurie's autobiography was an absolute pleasure to read. Her writing style takes some getting used to but once you dive in you don't want to put the book down. Laurie's narrative is very charming and while she remembers a lot of specifics there are some failings of memory that are natural for someone who has had such a long and interesting life as she had.

Laurie writes a lot about her experiences shooting different films. I enjoyed reading about The Hustler (1961), Until They Sail (1957) and even Carrie (1976) although I haven't seen that film. She also talks about notable Hollywood figures including Dennis Morgan, Donald O'Connor, Walter Matthau, Rock Hudson, Mel Gibson, George C. Scott, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Clark Gable, Joseph Mankiewicz, Howard Hughes, Ronald Reagan, etc.

Read my full review here: http://outofthepastcfb.blogspot.com/2...

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind-boggling revelations-I highly recommend this book! I had absolutely no idea! I have the movie Grass Harp and a couple of others, but like wow! what a history and life! Her ups & down, unanswered quandaries, and (you'd better believe) nothing is left to the imagination! Ronald Reagan, Christopher Plummer, Roddy McDowall, Tony Curtis, Mel Gibson...this woman is the quintessential Femme Fatale! A well-put-together book with photos and detailed cross reference index. Her career is far from over.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved Piper Laurie since seeing her in "Dream A Little Dream" back in the 1980's. I even found out by reading the book that Piper played the mother in the original movie "Carrie", which I didn't realize when I saw the movie. I felt horrible for the childhood that Rosetta "Piper" experienced. She managed to rise above the sadness she endured. Piper is truly a beautiful person inside and out. I love the fact that Piper has played so many diverse roles in her career and would love to see her in something new.

[Caffers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marking this as read although I did not finish. It started out interesting but just kind of grew boring. There were other books that were calling to me more. So I gave up.
Will give it 3 stars because I liked it, and it was easy to read, but I just didn't like it enough to keep reading.
I think if you really like Piper Laurie you would probably really enjoy it.
I might pick it up again... someday.

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've become really interested in old Hollywood actresses and love reading more about them so when I found this when I was away I knew I had to read it. Thought it was slow going at times but finished it before I came home so was enjoyable to read by the pool.

[Annie Booker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining read about a talented actress.

[Mediaman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ideally I'd say this is the perfect type of book that a fan would enjoy reading: it's filled with details about the author's acting career and private life. However, this is Piper Laurie, whose work was sporadic and personal life surprisingly immoral.

So what you get is an overly-long book detailing a lot of stage and live TV work that none of us have ever seen, her confirmation of her reputation as being a pain to deal with on set, mixed with a few hints at affairs she had with men along with a number of marriage offers that she turned down.

Overall it's unsatisfying due to the lack of editing on the acting side and lack of discretion on the private side where she brags about attracting men.

The book could use about a hundred pages cut, but there are some good stories hidden among them. She has no problem telling the world that Ronald Reagan took her virginity and then "criticized" her for how her body responded. Did we really need to know that she stained his sheets and that he had no idea what that meant?

This woman turns sexual very quickly and is juggling beds with a number of powerful men, including some that are allegedly gay. The worst part of the book deals with her attempt at excusing away her abortion. Early in her adulthood she turns down an offer to marry a man because she wants ten children and he doesn't want any. Next thing you know, she gets pregnant by another "friend" whom she has no intention of marrying, and starts hunting for an abortionist to kill the baby.

In almost overwhelming detail, the actress tries to make us feel sorry for her struggling to find someone to perform the abortion. She uses all sorts of excuses as to why she wasn't "ready" to have the baby (even though just a couple of years earlier she was begging a man to have ten of them with her!), and eventually she found a New York City doctor willing to do it after hours for $500 cash.

Laurie never apologizes or really expresses much regret, but then suddenly turns religious in her post-operation words: "I believe in 'life' and all its beauty. I am against destroying life, even in war...As a woman and a blessed creature of God, though I have no wings or blossoms, I believe I was given the gift of intelligence and self-wisdom to choose when to be a mother to my child. Some consider me selfish. But I could see no place to have this child...Over the years I thought a lot about what I had done and thanked God for the chance to continue on."

Hogwash. She's thanking God for the brains to be smart enough to kill the baby inside her? To claim you belief in life, want to have ten children, and then illegally get rid of one growing within you is disingenuous when invoking God's name as supporting your decision.

You can claim you believe in "all" of life but if you are aborting a baby because you don't think it's viable life then you're lying to yourself. I've seen women who won't kill a bug (scooping it up and running outside to set it free) or refuse to cut a flower since it may have feelings or won't allow an unwanted pregnant cat to be put down, all in the name of life, but they have no problem aborting a human inside them.

Later in the book she and her husband adopt a girl instead of having one naturally (which she admits she physically could have done) and again she invokes God's name. Yes, God gave you free choice and a mind to use in deciding how to live your life, but that mind was available to use when you were in bed with the guy having sex, which you could have stopped. And God giving you free will has to do with your choices for YOUR life, not you imposing your choices on others (such as the separate DNA growing within you).

Enough of a soap box, but this woman's use of her memoir as a religious defense of abortion was disgusting and stood out as inappropriate in the middle of her promiscuous life story.

Piper Laurie comes across as so many other young actresses that grow up in Hollywood--immoral, self-centered, delusional, and refusing to admit their failures. She should have done more to simply live decently instead of proclaiming her shameful acts out loud.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bold and candid

I was not very familiar with Piper Laurie, except for some of her screen rolls. But after finishing her memoir, I feel I know her very very well. And I really wish I did! This is a very insightful and truthful sharing of one’s life. Much to be learned and much to think about.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed her life story, told in her own voice. She stayed with me even after I finished her book.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actress Piper Laurie writes about her family and her career in Hollywood. Very interesting! I enjoyed it.

[Carl Rollyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1997, the American Film Institute named Humphrey Bogart the “Greatest Male Star” in cinema history. The same year, Entertainment Weekly christened him the “Number One Movie Legend” of all time. He is on a postage stamp. Woody Allen produced a hit play and film, “Play it Again, Sam” (1972), based on the Bogart mystique, and Albert Camus — no less — was flattered when told of his resemblance to Hollywood’s king.

Stefan Kanfer acknowledges these accolades as well as recent biographies by David Thomson√, Jeffrey Meyers√, A. M. Sperber√ and Eric Lax√ and memoirs by Lauren Bacall and Stephen Bogart√. If anyone has debunked this steadily accruing fame for an actor who died in 1957√ after more than 30 years of performances on stage and screen, Mr. Kanfer does not let on. He aims, instead, to offer a cogent narrative and analysis of Bogart’s appeal that is shorter than the tomes by Sperber and Lax or and Meyers, but more expansive than Thomson’s brief portrait in his “New Biographical Dictionary of Film.”

Or at least that seems to be Kanfer’s purpose; he does not really say. He mentions working in the archives of Sterling Library at Yale and in “private libraries”√ that are not otherwise identified. His book contains no notes, and his peculiar bibliography lists as “primary sources” other books about Bogart and as “secondary sources” everything else, such as books about Hollywood in the 1930s, film noir, stardom, and so on. If Mr. Kanfer has done any interviews — usually a staple of serious biographies about contemporary figures — he is silent on who said what.

As a readable work dealing in moderate depth with a world-famous movie star, Mr. Kanfer’s awkwardly titled book is serviceable. But if you have read his predecessors, then “Tough Without a Gun” is dispensable — unless, perhaps, the nuances of Bogartiana appeal to you.

Did George Raft really pass up the part of Rick, the role of a lifetime, in “Casablanca”? Mr. Kanfer says this story is a myth. David Thomson may be closer to the truth in suggesting that lots of names get thrown around when a film is coming together for production, implying that Raft never really had the opportunity to turn the part down. Sperber and Lax, wading through studio files, found ind that producer Hal Wallis never seriously considered Raft, although others seemed to think he Raft was a contender. He Raft lobbied for the role, according to Aljean Harmetz√ in “Round Up the Usual Suspects,” a comprehensive study of the making of “Casablanca.” So what Mr. Kanfer offers is nothing new, just a distillation of secondary sources.

In general, Mr. Kanfer seeks to split differencesbetween Sperber AND Lax and Meyers & Co. Many critics consider He is not an iconoclast of the Thomson variety, who argues “Casablanca” was not a mess that came together only at the last minute; in Thomson’s inconoclastic view, however, as some critics have suggested — “Casablanca” was rather a thoroughly professional job of work not all that differently made from other in the Hollywood products of theat period. But that begs a Thomson’s analysis, however, begs the question, doesn’t it? How did an efficient product become a classic? Its stars, especially Ingrid Bergman, thought the film was a muddle and were astonished when it came to be ranked as a great film.

Mr. Kanfer takes the traditional route, describing the hectic script consultations, the different writers, the rewrites even as the film neared the end of its shooting schedule — but then he shuts down discussion of all the shenanigans, saying that, in the end, “Casablanca” the film triumphs because of Bogart. And, according to Mr. Kanfer, Bogart succeeds not only because of his impeccable performance, but also because of the persona he perfected in earlier films like “The Maltese Falcon.” Here Mr. Kanfer shines, getting all of Bogart in an evocative, inventive phrase: “wounded, cynical, romantic, and as incorrodible as a zinc bar.” [69√]

What makes Bogart great is the oxymoronic nature of his appeal. The greatest legends, the supreme myths, are founded on an amalgamation of opposites. How can one person be both cynical and romantic? But this mix is exactly what Bogart as embodies in “Casablanca,” where he plays Rick Blaine, a soured anti-fascist who seems not to care, and yet cares so deeply that he will suppress sacrifice his feelings of betrayal to serve a larger cause — aiding the escape of Bergman’s freedom-fighter husband from the Nazi-controlled city. Bogart only has to look at Bergman, his sunken eyes revealing his anger and sorrow because she abandoned him in Paris, and deliver his sentimental lines with deft understatement. His heroism emerges unheralded and is all the more powerful because subtlety is not what Hollywood typically had to offer in Bogart’s heyday.

Consider Mr. Kanfer’s biography, then, as a sort of confirmation and consolidation of the Bogart mythos, an elegant, if not especially challenging evocation of the man and his work.

[R.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written (by Ms. Laurie herself without a ghost writer,)interesting journey through her life and career. From being so shy, she could barely speak she dreamt of being an actress on the screen. She achieved that at a young age, and found it very wanting. Bravely she broke her contract, and tried to become a real actor rather than a starlet. Though she was very shy in some respects, after losing her virginity to Ronald Reagan, She became quite sexually active and provocative without regret

In interview and the book, she says how she came up with all the craziness for her most famous role. In 2 to 3 separate incidents with her own mother, who was very loving, but highly dramatic, planted the seeds that resulted in Margaret White. Piper Laurie is more than just Carrie’s outrageous mother.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pipler Laurie isn't a great writer, but she's led an interesting life and done some remarkably good work. She tends to skip over some of the tougher parts of her life ("And then I decided to give up a 20-year addiction to amphetamines and did that overnight...") and to dwell too much on some other stuff (like losing her virginity to Ronald Reagan - yuck). The best parts are talking about the work - everything from her days as a pinup for Universal Studios to her turn as a Japanese businessman in "Twin Peaks." Not a great read, but a decent beach read.

[Marcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first library "ebook" checkout, chosen more or less as a test for whether I could bear to read a book on a device. I was looking under "biographies" and this was available. A fairly comprehensive yet easily read journal of her life, Piper Laurie started in the studio system, performed in live television dramas, and has continued acting on stage and in film. Interesting read, enough personal info (love affairs, etc.) to spice it up, but very much based on her work and the people who have been meaningful in her life.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having loved movies of the 40s as a child of the 60s; I came to know Piper Laurie. Her career continued in to more recent times; but I knew virtually nothing of her life. Her autobiography was informative, surprising (her revelations of Ronald Reagan's deflowering her, to name a few), and relationship with director, John Frankenhiemer; and family life held my attention.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been an incredibly long time since I have got through a book so quickly. There's nothing special about the style of Piper Laurie's writing but she tells a compelling story and for me, an inspiring one, on overcoming crippling shyness and not being trapped by compromise - it touched a nerve with me.

[Etana · Rating 4 out of 5]

actually liked this interesting book a lot. Intimate, frank, unpretentious

[Renee · Rating 2 out of 5]

too simple all the way around.