Iconic movie star who played one of the most famous horror characters of all time looks UNRECOGNIZABLE in old photos

A certain star who made her big break in Hollywood in the 1970s with an iconic horror movie role looked VERY different in high school.

The American A-lister has taken home an Academy Award for Best Actress as well as five other Oscar nominations throughout her career. 

She also won three Golden Globes and even snapped up a Grammy nomination for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

The actress starred in movies alongside Hollywood royalty - including Kevin Costner, Mel Gibson, John Travolta, Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange and Tommy Lee Jones.

Her breakout role was in the original screenplay of a Stephen King novel - which was remade in 2013 and starred Chloë Grace Moretz in the same role.

Mary Elizabeth Spacek - known better as Sissy Spacek - is the Hollwood star who had a MAJOR transformation before she entered the showbiz scene.

Spacek, 73, is most famous for playing the titular role in the 1976 movie adaptation of Stephen King's supernatural horror 'Carrie' - but she's had an impressive and long stint in Hollywood, and it isn't over yet.

She was born in Quitman, Texas, on Christmas Day in 1949 and grew up nearby with her parents and brothers - who nicknamed her Sissy.

The actress was deeply affected by her brother Robbie's tragic death at the age of 18 from Leukemia - and even referred to it as 'the defining event of my whole life', but she said the tragedy made her 'fearless' in her acting career.

'I think it made me brave. Once you experience something like that, you've experienced the ultimate tragedy,' she said. 'If you can continue, nothing else frightens you.

'Maybe it gave more depth to my work because I had already experienced something profound and life-changing.'

After a stint as homecoming queen at Quitman high school followed by her graduation - the Texas-native picked up and went to New York City to chase her dreams of being a singer-songwriter. 

Between homecoming and her dive into the entertainment pool - Spacek had a complete physical transformation.

In her yearbook picture - a teenage Sissy poses with her homecoming crown wearing thick eye-makeup, rocking a bob with bangs and showing off her full set of straight teeth in a sweet smile.

Upon arriving in New York City - she had leaned into her cute look - with natural freckles, no makeup, strawberry blonde hair and a slimmed out face, as well as a  nose that appears much smaller.

She was dropped by her music label when sales of the music she recorded in the late 1960s crashed.

In her comeback, she hit the big screen for the first time in Prime Cut - a 1972 movie directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Lee Marvin. Spacek played the role of Poppy - a girl sold into sexual slavery.

Her breakthrough role was in Terrence Malick's Badlands in 1973 - a period crime drama starring Spacek alongside Martin Sheen - a role that she described as the 'most incredible' experience of her career. 

Next came her most prominent early role in Carrie - a role that she had to beg the director, Brian De Palma, to cast her in.

She showed up to the audition with Vaseline in her hair and wearing a sailors dress that her mother made when she was a child and her determination and commitment to the role paid off.

Her performance as Carrie received glowing reviews and earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.  

The New Yorker published a review of her 'Carrie' by Pauline Kael, who said: 'She shifts back and forth and sideways: a nasal, whining child; a chaste young beauty at the prom; and then a second transformation when her destructive impulses burst out and age her.

'Sissy Spacek uses her freckled pallor and whitish eyelashes to suggest a squashed, groggy girl who could go in any direction; at times, she seems unborn – a fetus.'

Spacek went on to win an Academy Award for Best Actress in the 1980 movie Coal Miner's Daughter for her portrayal of country music star Loretta Lynn - and she sung her character's vocals herself.

Two years later she gave birth to her first daughter with production designer and art director Jack Fisk - who she married in 1974 after the pair met on the set of Badlands.

The couple had two daughters - Schuyler Fisk, 41, and Madison Fisk, 35. Both girls went into the entertainment industry themselves, Schuyler as a musician and Madison as a production designer.

Spacek said her daughters 'brought her back down to earth' during a time when her 'career was soaring'. 

The family moved to a farm near Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1982. Spacek said 'I wanted to give my children roots. Have them grow up with animals and dirt between their toes.'

She released a memoir - My Extraordinary Ordinary Life - in 2020. The book is divided into four parts: Texas, New York, California and Virginia which each represent a phase in her life.

Spacek worked with Harvey Weinstein in 1990 on a film about the Montgomery bus boycott. 

In an interview with the Irish Times she opened up about being lucky that she usually got to work with friends - and often times her art director husband - who protected her from the abusive side of Hollywood.

'I was already an established actor, so I was protected in that way from him. Also, I had been warned by someone I was close to, who said be careful, and so I was,' she said when asked about Weinstein. 

'He did some things that I thought were very unsavory, but they weren't sexual,' she shared about her experience with the film producer and convicted sex offender.