Priscilla Pointer, an actress known for “Dallas” and the mother of actress Amy Irving, has died. She was 100.
Writer-director and USC professor David Irving, her son, said Pointer died Monday at an assisted living facility in Ridgefield, Conn.
Pointer was born May 18, 1924, in New York City.
She began her acting career on theater stages in New York in productions like “A Streetcar Named Desire,” often under the direction of husband Jules Irving. She also appeared in the 1970 Broadway revival of “Camino Real” and the 1973 revival of “Street Car.”
Pointer and Irving met in Europe after an army production of “Brother Rat.” The couple went on to start The San Francisco Actor’s Workshop.
“Instead of using babysitters, Mama would put us in the front row where she could watch us from the stage,” Irving said in a 1994 interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Pointer played Irving’s mom in Brian DePalma’s horror classic, and Stephen King adaptation, “Carrie” and appeared with her daughter in six other movies, including “A Show of Force” and “Micki + Maude”— which also starred Pointer’s second husband Robert Symonds.
She starred in three of her son’s feature films, “Rumpelstiltskin” — which starred sister Amy — “C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud” and “Goodbye, Cruel World.
She also played Kyle MacLachlan’s in David Lynch‘s “Blue Velvet” and in Sean Penn’s cold war-thriller “The Falcon and the Snowman.”
Pointer had a recurring role on soap opera “Dallas” as the mother of Pamela Ewing, played by Victoria Principal.
Other credits include “Mommie Dearest,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,” “Twilight Zone: The Movie” and “ER.”
Pointer “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,” Amy Irving wrote on Instagram alongside a carousel of images of her mom.
She is survived by her three children, David, Katie and Amy.
