Priscilla_Pointer

Priscilla Pointer

Priscilla Pointer (born May 18, 1924) is an American stage, film and television character actress. She began her career in the theater, including productions on Broadway. Later, Pointer moved to Hollywood to act in films and on television. She is the mother of actress Amy Irving (and, thus, former mother-in-law of Steven Spielberg).

Biography

Personal life

Pointer was born in New York City, the daughter of Augusta Leonora (née Davis), an artist and illustrator, and Kenneth K. Pointer, an artist. Pointer is of Welsh and Cherokee descent. Pointer is the mother of director David Irving, actress Amy Irving and singer Katie Irving, who performed two songs heard in the prom sequence in Carrie.

Pointer was married to film and stage director Jules Irving, former artistic director of the Lincoln Center, from 1947 until his death in 1979. In 1980, she married producer-actor-director Robert Symonds (1926–2007), who was Jules Irving's producing partner at Lincoln Center. She has appeared several times in stage productions alongside Symonds.

Career

Pointer's first starring television role was on the series, Where the Heart Is as "Adrienne Harris Rainey" from 1972–1973. She also appeared in the 1980s primetime soap opera Dallas as "Rebecca Barnes Wentworth" from 1981-1983.

Pointer has appeared in many films, including Carrie (1976), in which she played the onscreen mother of her real-life daughter Amy Irving, The Onion Field (1979), Mommie Dearest (1981), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Coyote Moon (1999). In addition to Carrie, she has played onscreen mother to real-life daughter Amy twice again: in Honeysuckle Rose (1980) and Carried Away (1996).

Pointer appeared in three films that her son, David, directed: a 1987 musical version of Rumpelstiltskin that also starred Amy Irving; Good-Bye Cruel World and the sequel to C.H.U.D., C.H.U.D. II. She made many guest appearances in television shows, including Adam-12, L.A. Law, The A-Team, Judging Amy, The Rockford Files, and Cold Case. During the 1980s, she had a recurring role as Pam Ewing's mother on Dallas.