Learning to Live Out Loud : A Memoir

by LAURIE, PIPER

• ISBN13: 9780823026685
• ISBN10: 082302668X
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780823026777
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-11-01
• Publisher: Crown Archetype

Summary

Laurie has won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and has been thrice nominated for an Oscar and she's not done yet. She'll soon appear in the film Hesher and is directing a one-man play based on Zero Mostel's life. And she's written a memoir, which traces her life from shy child to tough-willed actress who rebelled against the studio system. Lots of cameos and fun for all.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Home	p. 7
Mother	p. 17
The Real Thing	p. 32
Breaking Me In	p. 51
About the World	p. 71
Becoming Movie Stars	p. 91
Gaining Independence	p. 112
Burning the Contract	p. 137
A Difficult Actress	p. 157
The Twenty-fifth Day	p. 178
Days of Wine and Roses	p. 196
Joe	p. 225
Woodstock	p. 250
Carrie	p. 266
The Great Years	p. 285
Peaks and Valleys	p. 298
Surprises	p. 314
Zero Hour	p. 337
Acknowledgments3	p. 43
Index	p. 345
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

One evening I received a new script from Universal. My last movie had beenAin’t Misbehavin’, in which I’d been horribly miscast. I was told the reviews were punishing. Many times through the years, my agents and I had tried to change the structure of my contract, giving me some freedom to do other things. But they would not budge. Still, I was ever hopeful. 

I read the new script. This one wasn’t even a B western. It was a C western. The male star would be Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of World War II. He was a genuine hero, had a likable natural presence on the screen, and had become a Universal movie star, playing the lead in many movies. The woman’s part was a prop and just barely that, possibly the worst part they had ever handed me. I suddenly felt so deeply insulted, so unappreciated, so mortally wounded. This time they had gone too far. I calmly got up, walked over to the fireplace, and dropped their script into the flames. With it went a little of the humiliation I had endured in the last five years. Something was coming alive in me. 

—From Chapter 8, “Burning the Contract”