Piper Laurie

Promise

Long absent from his family, Bob Beuhler (James Garner) returns home after his mother's death to find she has left him her estate and placed his brother, D.J. (James Woods), in his care. Harking back to a promise made many years earlier, Bob cannot bring himself to put D.J., who suffers from epilepsy and schizophrenia, in a home. Slowly, he and his brother bond, and in the process Bob rehabilitates his own scars, including the mark left on him by his childhood sweetheart (Piper Laurie).

Children of a Lesser God

Starting his new job as an instructor at a New England school for the deaf, James Leeds (William Hurt) meets Sarah Norman (Marlee Matlin), a young deaf woman who works at the school as a member of the custodial staff. A romance slowly develops between the pair in spite of Sarah's withdrawn emotional state due in part to her difficult relationship with her mother (Piper Laurie). Matlin, who is deaf in real life, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this, her first film role.