Priscilla Pointer

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Priscilla Pointer (b. May 18, 1924 in New York City) 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.

Her first starring TV role was on the television series Where the Heart Is as Adrienne Harris Rainey from 1972-1973. She also starred 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).

She appeared in three films that her son, David Irving 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 has made many guest appearances in television shows, including Adam 12, L.A. Law, The A-Team, Judging Amy, The Rockford Files, and Cold Case.

Pointer is also the mother of singer Katie Irving, who performs two songs heard in the prom sequence in Carrie. She 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, who was her Jules Irving's producing partner at Lincoln Center. She has appeared several times in stage productions alongside Symonds.