At a glance
| Born | November 22, 1958, Los Angeles |
| Known for | Laurie Strode in Halloween |
| Parents | Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis |
| Role | Actor, author |
Overview
Jamie Lee Curtis plays Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978) and in the sequels that bother to bring her back. She is the babysitter who survives Michael Myers, and then the woman who spends forty years waiting for him. The scream-queen label came from the run of films right after Halloween: The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train. The later career is comedies, True Lies, and a second life as a writer of children’s books. Halloween is still the role the wiki is here for.
Career
She is the daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. Leigh was already Marion Crane in Psycho, which the Halloween marketing never had to explain. John Carpenter and Debra Hill cast Curtis as Laurie when she was nineteen. Halloween II (1981) puts her in the hospital and reveals, in that film’s canon, that she is Michael’s sister. She skipped the middle sequels. Halloween H20 (1998) brings her back and ignores the brother-sister sequels she was not in, then uses them anyway. Halloween: Resurrection (2002) kills Laurie early. She has not been kind about that film.
Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), and Halloween Ends (2022) wipe the slate again. Laurie is not Michael’s sister. She has been preparing for him. Curtis plays her as angry and ready, and Ends is the close of that trilogy. Outside the series she won an Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), playing a different kind of mother. True Lies, Freaky Friday, and A Fish Called Wanda are the films people know who do not watch horror.
Halloween credits
- Halloween (1978)
- Halloween II (1981)
- Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
- Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
- Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), Halloween Ends (2022)
Trivia
- She is not in Halloween 4, 5, or 6. Those films follow other characters.
- The sister twist is from Halloween II. The 2018 film throws it out.
- Her mother, Janet Leigh, has a cameo in H20.
- Carpenter has said the casting was partly because of Psycho, and mostly because she was right for Laurie.
- She has called Resurrection a mistake and treated the 2018 trilogy as the correction.