Born in New York City on May 18, 1924, Priscilla Pointer made her screen acting debut in 1954 and, over the course of a career that lasted 60 years, went on to rack up more than 90 other credits. Sadly, trades like The Hollywood Reporter have broken the news today that Pointer passed away in an assisted living facility in Ridgefield, Connecticut on April 28, 2025 at the age of 100, just twenty days shy of her 101st birthday.
Pointer’s first acting credit came on the 1954 TV show The New Adventures of China Smith. For years, she turned her focus to the stage, working with her first husband, Jules Irving, at the San Francisco Actor’s Workshop and the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center. Then, she returned to the screen with an episode of N.Y.P.D. in 1969. From there, she would appear in such films and TV shows as The High Chaparral, Death Takes a Holiday, McCloud, Adam 12, The Rockford Files, Kojak, Cannon, Police Woman, The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, Phyllis, Barnaby Jones, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Mrs. Columbo, Family, Knots Landing, Lou Grant, Mommie Dearest; Quincy, M.E.; The A-Team, Twilight Zone: The Movie, St. Elsewhere, The Falcon and the Snowman, Call to Glory, Amazing Stories, Newhart, CHUD II: Bud the Chud, The Flash, ER, Picket Fences, Touched by an Angel, Judging Amy, and Cold Case.
Pointer may be best remembered for her role as Mrs. Snell in Carrie, for playing Rebecca Barnes Wentworth on 44 episodes of Dallas, bringing the infuriating Dr. Elizabeth Simms to life in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and/or appearing as Mrs. Beaumont in Blue Velvet.
She had three children with Jules Irving; singer Katie Irving, writer/director David Irving, and actress Amy Irving. She shared the screen with Amy in Carrie, and they would go on to work together again on The Competition, Honeysuckle Rose, Micki + Maude, Rumpelstiltskin, A Show of Force, Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Classics, and Carried Away.
Preceded in death by Jules Irving, who passed away in 1979, and her second husband, Robert Symonds, who passed in 2007, Priscilla Pointer is survived by her three children; Amy Irving’s husband, documentarian Kenneth Bowser; and eight grandchildren. Our sincere condolences go out to her family, friends, and fans.
