Priscilla Pointer, the actor known for her performances in Carrie and Dallas, has died. She was 100.
The New York City-born actor starred in several films with her daughter, Amy Irving, including playing her onscreen mother in Carrie.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pointer died on Monday, April 28 at an assisted living facility in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Her death was announced by her son, writer and director David Irving.
Pointer was born on May 18, 1924, to artist parents. She started her career in the theatre in New York in the 1940s, appearing on Broadway and in touring productions of A Streetcar Named Desire, The Country Wife, and The Condemned of Altona.
In 1947 she married actor Jules Irving, who went on to co-found the San Francisco Actor's Workshop and became the artistic director of Lincoln Center. The couple were married until Irving’s death from a heart attack in 1979. They had three children: Katie, David and Amy.
Pointer appeared in the Singapore-set television series China Smith in 1954 before taking a long hiatus from acting. She returned to the screen in an episode of cop show NYPD in 1969, and made her film debut opposite her daughter in Brian DePalma’s horror classic Carrie in 1976. She went on to play her real-life daughter’s onscreen mother in two more films, 1980’s Honeysuckle Rose and 1996’s Carried Away. Additionally, they both starred in 1980’s The Competition, 1984’s Micki & Maude, 1987’s Rumpelstiltskin and 1990’s A Show of Force.
Pointer carved out something of a niche as a screen mother. In 1977 she was Diane Keaton‘s in Looking for Mr Goodbar, and in 1985 she was Sean Penn’s in The Falcon and the Snowman. In 1986, she played Kyle MacLachlan’s mother in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet.
On television she played Rebecca Barnes Wentworth, the mother of Victoria Principal’s character, on the long-running soap Dallas from 1981 to 1983.
She continued to act later in her life, appearing in episodes of The Flash and ER in the 1990s and Judging Amy and Cold Case in the 2000s.
She was married a second time, to the actor and director Robert Symonds, from 1980 until his death in 2007.
In a post on Instagram, Amy Irving wrote: “Priscilla Pointer, acclaimed stage television and film actress, and mother of David, Katie, and Amy Irving, died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 100, hopefully to run off with her 2 adoring husbands and her many dogs.
“She most definitely will be missed.”
