Karen Black
| Karen Black | |
|---|---|
|
Black in Five Easy Pieces, 1970. | |
| Born |
Karen Blanche Ziegler July 1, 1939 Park Ridge, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died |
August 8, 2013 (aged 74) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Ampullary cancer |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater |
Maine Township High School East Northwestern University |
| Occupation | Actress, screenwriter, singer, composer |
| Years active | 1960–2013 |
| Religion | Scientology |
| Spouse(s) |
Charles Black (m. 1960) Robert Burton (m. 1973–74) L. M. Kit Carson (m. 1975–83) Stephen Eckelberry (m. 1987–2013) |
| Children | 3, including Hunter Carson |
| Relatives | Gail Brown (sister) |
Karen Blanche Black (née Ziegler; July 1, 1939 – August 8, 2013) was an American actress, screenwriter, singer and songwriter. A native of Illinois, Black studied acting in New York City and performed on Broadway before making her major film debut in Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now (1966).
She followed this with roles in Easy Rider (1969), Five Easy Pieces (1970), and The Great Gatsby (1974), for the latter two of which she won Golden Globe awards for Best Supporting Actress; her performance in Five Easy Pieces also garnered her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.[1] In 1975, she appeared in Dan Curtis's cult horror films Trilogy of Terror and Burnt Offerings; Robert Altman's Nashville, and The Day of the Locust, which earned her a third Golden Globe nomination. Other roles include Airport 1975 (1974), Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976), Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), and Tobe Hooper's Invaders from Mars (1986).
In the 1990s, Black starred in a variety of arthouse and horror films, as well as writing her own screenplays before appearing in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003), which cemented her status as a cult horror icon.[2] Black continued to star in low-profile films throughout the early 2000s, as well as working as a playwright before being diagnosed with ampullary cancer in 2010. She died of the disease in Los Angeles, California, in August 2013. Black's career spanned over fifty years, and includes nearly two hundred film credits.[2]
Early life
Black was born as Karen Blanche Ziegler in Park Ridge, Illinois, in suburban Chicago, the daughter of Elsie Mary (née Reif), a writer of several prize-winning children's novels, and Norman Arthur Ziegler, an engineer and businessman.[3][4][5] Her paternal grandfather was Arthur Charles Ziegler, a classical musician and first violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.[6] She had one sister, actress Gail Brown, and a brother. Black was of German, Bohemian (Czech) and Norwegian descent.[7] She graduated from Maine Township High School East in 1957. After high school, Black enrolled at Northwestern University, where she majored in theatre arts.[8]
Career
Early work: 1960-1970
Black made her Broadway debut in 1965's The Playroom, which received good reviews and for which she was nominated for a Drama Circle Critic Award for Best Actress. Her film debut was in The Prime Time (1960) and her first big role was in You're a Big Boy Now (1966), directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Beginning in 1967, she appeared in guest roles in several television series, including The F.B.I., Run for Your Life, The Big Valley, The Iron Horse, Mannix and Adam-12.
Her feature film career expanded in 1969, playing the role of an acid-tripping prostitute opposite Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in the iconic counterculture movie Easy Rider. In 1970, Black appeared as Rayette, the waitress girlfriend of Jack Nicholson, in the film Five Easy Pieces, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and earned her her first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress-Motion Picture. She also won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film.
Breakthrough and success in Hollywood: 1971-1985
Black played an unfaithful wife, Myrtle Wilson, in the 1974 version of The Great Gatsby, a performance that earned her a second Golden Globe Award in the same category. In the same year she starred as Nancy Pryor, the stewardess who is forced to fly the plane, in the disaster film Airport 1975 (1974).[8] In 1975, she played multiple roles in Dan Curtis's televised anthology film Trilogy of Terror. The segments, all written by suspense writer Richard Matheson, were named after the women involved in the plot — a plain college professor who seduces a student ("Julie"), a pair of sisters who squabble over their father's inheritance ("Millicent and Therese"), and the lonely recipient of a cursed Zuni fetish that comes to life and pursues her relentlessly ("Amelia").
Black received another Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress for her role as an aspiring actress in 1930s Hollywood in John Schlesinger's tragic drama The Day of the Locust (1975). She also starred as a country singer in Robert Altman's Nashville (also 1975) and as a kidnapper in what turned out to be Alfred Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot (1976). She also reunited with director Dan Curtis to star in the horror film Burnt Offerings (1976), with Oliver Reed and Bette Davis. She then played a dual role in a 1977 thriller, The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver.
Other notable films from the 1970s include Born to Win (1971) with George Segal and Robert De Niro, Cisco Pike (1972) with Kris Kristofferson and Gene Hackman, Portnoy's Complaint (1972) with Richard Benjamin, The Pyx (1973) with Christopher Plummer, The Outfit (1973) with Robert Duvall, Rhinoceros (1974) with Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel, and Capricorn One (1978) with Elliott Gould.
In 1982, Black gave a critically acclaimed performance in Robert Altman's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, where she starred alongside Cher and Sandy Dennis. From 1984 to 1985, she played the role of Sheila Sheinfeld in the NBC series E/R. Other television credits include Saturday Night Live, Murder, She Wrote, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Career decline and later work: 1986-2013
Black's later career tailed off into numerous horror roles, beginning in Tobe Hooper's Invaders from Mars (1986), which she starred in with her son, Hunter Carson. As her later career progressed, Black did gain and maintain a cult following, as alluded to by Family Guy television anchor Tom Tucker in his remark "Karen Black: what an obscure reference." in the episode Death Is a Bitch (season 2, episode 6). Other horror roles included as a troubled single mother in Mirror, Mirror (1990), Children of the Night (1991), and as a paranoid mother in small-town Nebraska in Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996), alongside Naomi Watts.
In 2003, Black starred as Mother Firefly in the Rob Zombie horror movie House of 1000 Corpses. In March 2005, Black received the Best Actress Award at the Fantasporto International Film Festival in Porto, Portugal, for her work in the critically acclaimed Steve Balderson film Firecracker (2005), in which she plays two roles, Sandra and Eleanor. She and actor John Hurt were both presented with Career Achievement Awards as well.
Black launched career as a playwright in May 2007 with the opening of Missouri Waltz at the Blank Theater in Los Angeles; Black starred in the play as well. In April 2009, Black worked with director Steve Balderson for Stuck!, an homage to film noir women-in-prison dramas, which co-starred Mink Stole, Pleasant Gehman and Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's. Black also starred in John Landis' 2010 thriller, Some Guy Who Kills People,[9] as well as Aïda Ruilova's surrealist short film Meet the Eye (2009). Later that year, Black appeared on Cass McCombs' song "Dreams-Come-True-Girl" from the album Catacombs.
The experimental hip-hop group Death Grips released a video on YouTube called "Bottomless Pit" in October 2015. The video shows footage of Black reciting lines from a film script written by the group's drummer/co-producer Zach Hill. The footage was shot in early 2013.[10]
Personal life
Black married four times:
- Charles Black, married in 1960.[11][12]
- Robert Burton, an actor (who appeared alongside Black in Trilogy of Terror), married on April 18, 1973 and separated in October 1974.[3][11]
- L. M. Kit Carson, an actor/screenwriter, married on July 4, 1975 and separated in 1980. They had a son, actor Hunter Carson.[11][12]
- Stephen Eckelberry, from September 27, 1987. They adopted a daughter, Celine.[11][12] The couple were active Scientologists.[13][14]
Death
After her final films were released in 2010, she was diagnosed with cancer and stopped making public appearances. She had a portion of her pancreas removed that year and endured two further operations.[15] She was invited to attend the premiere of River Phoenix's last on-screen performance in the salvaged feature film Dark Blood, in which she had played a small part in the original early 1990s shoot. Black was unable to attend the event, held in the Netherlands in September 2012, due to her illness.[12] On August 8, 2013, Black died in Los Angeles from ampullary cancer at age 74.[16] Actress Juliette Lewis paid tribute, saying "Karen Black was my mentor and a second mother to me. She inspired everyone she came in contact with."[17]
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | The Prime Time | Betty - Painted Woman | |
| 1966 | You're a Big Boy Now | Amy Partlett | |
| 1969 | Hard Contract | Ellen | |
| Easy Rider | Karen | ||
| 1970 | Five Easy Pieces | Rayette Dipesto | Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture (tied with Maureen Stapleton for Airport) Laurel Award for Star of Tomorrow (runner-up) Laurel Award for Top Female Supporting Performance (runner-up) National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress (runner-up) New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated—National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress |
| 1971 | Drive, He Said | Olive | |
| A Gunfight | Jenny Simms | ||
| Born to Win | Parm | ||
| 1972 | Cisco Pike | Sue | |
| Portnoy's Complaint | Mary Jane Reid - The Monkey | ||
| 1973 | The Pyx | Elizabeth Lucy | |
| The Outfit | Bett Harrow | ||
| 1974 | Rhinoceros | Daisy | |
| The Great Gatsby | Myrtle Wilson | Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture | |
| Law and Disorder | Gloria | ||
| Airport 1975 | Nancy Pryor | ||
| 1975 | Trilogy of Terror | Julie Millicent Larimore Therese Larimore Amelia |
|
| The Day of the Locust | Faye Greener | Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama | |
| Nashville | Connie White | Nominated—Grammy Award for Album of Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special | |
| 1976 | Family Plot | Fran | |
| Burnt Offerings | Marian Rolf | Sitges-Catalonian International Film Festival Best Actress Award | |
| Crime and Passion | Susan Winters | ||
| 1977 | Capricorn One | Judy Drinkwater | |
| 1978 | In Praise of Older Women | Maya | |
| The Rip-Off | Clarisse Saunders | ||
| 1979 | The Last Word | Paula Herbert | |
| Killer Fish | Kate Neville | ||
| 1981 | Separate Ways | Valentine Colby | |
| Chanel Solitaire | Emilienne d'Alençon | ||
| Killing Heat | Mary Turner | ||
| 1982 | Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean | Joanne | |
| The Last Horror Film | Karen Black | (uncredited) | |
| Miss Right | Amy | ||
| 1983 | Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? | Zee | |
| 1984 | Bad Manners | Gladys Fitzpatrick | (also released as Growing Pains) |
| 1985 | The Blue Man aka Eternal Evil | Janus | |
| Savage Dawn | Rachel | ||
| Cut and Run | Karin | ||
| Martin's Day | Karen | ||
| 1986 | Invaders from Mars | Linda Magnusson | |
| Flight of the Spruce Goose | Gloria | ||
| 1987 | Hostage | Laura Lawrence | |
| It's Alive III: Island of the Alive | Ellen | ||
| 1988 | The Invisible Kid | Deborah Dunn | |
| Dixie Lanes | Zelma Putnam | ||
| Out of the Dark | Ruth Wilson | ||
| The Legendary Life of Ernest Hemingway | Martha Gelhorn | ||
| 1989 | Homer and Eddie | Belle | |
| 1990 | Mirror, Mirror | Susan Gordon | |
| The Children | Sybil Lullmer | ||
| Club Fed | Sally Rich | ||
| Zapped Again! | Substitute Teacher | ||
| Overexposed | Mrs. Trowbridge | ||
| Twisted Justice | Mrs. Granger | ||
| Night Angel | Rita | ||
| Evil Spirits | Ella Purdy | ||
| 1991 | The Roller Blade Seven | Tarot | |
| Rubin and Ed | Rula | ||
| Children of the Night | Karen Thompson | ||
| 1992 | Return of the Roller Blade Seven | Tarot | |
| The Double 0 Kid | Mrs. Elliot | ||
| Tuesday Never Comes | Michelle | ||
| Caged Fear | Blanche | ||
| Judgment | Tiffany Powers | ||
| Aunt Lee's Meat Pies | Aunt Lee | ||
| 1993 | Bound and Gagged: A Love Story | Carla | |
| The Trust | Maria Vandermeer | ||
| Dark Blood | Motel Woman | (completed in 2012) | |
| 1995 | Plan 10 from Outer Space | Nehor | |
| Starstruck | Bertha | ||
| The Wacky Adventures of Dr. Boris and Nurse Shirley | Evelyn | ||
| 1996 | Crimetime | Millicent | |
| Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering | June Rhodes | ||
| Sister Island | Rose Walsh | ||
| Movies Money Murder | Bettie | ||
| Every Minute is Goodbye | Schubert | ||
| Dinosaur Valley Girls | Ro-Kell | ||
| 1997 | Dogtown | Rose Van Horn | Hermosa Beach Film Festival Best Actress Award (also for Sugar: The Fall of the West) |
| Conceiving Ada | Lady Byron Mother Coer |
||
| Stir | Dr. Gabrielle Kessler | ||
| Men | Alex | also screenwriter | |
| 1998 | Fallen Arches | Lucy Romano | Chicago Alt. Film Festival Best Actress Award |
| Charades | Jude | ||
| I Woke Up Early The Day I Died | Whip Lady | ||
| Bury the Evidence | The Mother | ||
| Malaika | Jessica Martin | ||
| Waiting for Dr. MacGuffin | Dental Assistant | Short film | |
| Stripping for Jesus | Short film | ||
| 1999 | The Underground Comedy Movie | Mother | |
| Mascara | Aunt Eloise | ||
| Paradise Cove | Ma | ||
| 2000 | Red Dirt | Aunt Summer | |
| Oliver Twisted | Mrs. Mary Happ | ||
| 2001 | Gypsy 83 | Bambi LeBleau | |
| Soulkeeper | Magnificent Martha | ||
| The Donor | Mrs. Springle | ||
| Hard Luck | Aunt Judy | ||
| 2002 | Teknolust | Dirty Dick | |
| Buttleman | Mrs. Buttleman | ||
| Curse of the Forty-Niner | Aunt Nelly | ||
| 2003 | Summer Solstice | Dr. Sally McDermott | |
| House of 1000 Corpses | Mother Firefly | Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Supporting Actress | |
| Paris | Chantrelle | ||
| 2004 | America Brown | Marianne Brown | |
| Birth of Industry | Sara | Short film | |
| 2005 | Firecracker | Sandra Eleanor |
International Fantasy Film Award for Best Actress New York VisionFest Outstanding Achievement Award |
| My Suicidal Sweetheart | Grace's Mom | (released as Crazy for Love) | |
| Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula | Agrippina | Short film | |
| Dr. Rage | Molly | ||
| 2006 | Hollywood Dreams | Luna | |
| Whitepaddy | Mrs. Leider | ||
| Read You Like a Book | Kate | ||
| 2007 | Suffering Man's Charity | Renee | |
| One Long Night | Barbara | ||
| 2008 | Watercolors | Mrs. Martin | |
| A Single Woman | Storyteller | ||
| Contamination | Mavis | ||
| The Blue Tooth Virgin | Zena | ||
| 2009 | Double Duty | Annabelle | |
| First Time Long Time | Dr. Shneidel | Short film | |
| Irene in Time | Sheila Shivvers | ||
| Repo Chick | Aunt de la Chasse | ||
| Stuck! | Next Door Neighbor Lady | ||
| Meet the Eye | Short film | ||
| 2010 | Nothing Special | May | |
| 2011 | Some Guy Who Kills People | Ruth Boyd | |
| Letters from the Big Man | Sean's Colleague | ||
| OowieWanna | The Donna | Short film | |
| Maria My Love | Maria | ||
| 2012 | Vacationland | Louise Bergen | |
| Mommy's Little Monster | Mrs. Melnick | ||
| Warnings from the Bathtub | Mother | Short film | |
| 2013 | Ooga Booga | Mrs. Allardyce | |
| She Loves Me Not | Karla | ||
| Bottomless Pit | Herself (Karen Black) | Unfinished film by Zach Hill | |
| 2014 | Wild in Blue | Justine | |
| A Walk Into a Split Mind | Karen | ||
Source:"Karen Black". IMDb. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
References
- ↑ "Awards for Karen Black". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
- 1 2 Lederhandler, Marty (2013-08-08). "Karen Black, Oscar-nominated actress and cult horror film icon, dies at 74". SCPR. Retrieved 2015-07-01.
- 1 2 "Karen Black Biography (1939?-)". Filmreference.com. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
- ↑ Frisbie, Thomas (2008-06-18). "Article: Wrote history-based books for young adults". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
- ↑
- ↑ "Karen Black Biography - Yahoo! Movies". Movies.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
- ↑ "Karen Blanche Ziegler: Zellner Family Genealogy". Zellnerfamily.com. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
- 1 2 "Karen Black dies at 74; actress starred in 'Five Easy Pieces' and 'Easy Rider'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2013-08-10.
- ↑ "Some Guy Who Kills People Casting News". DreadCentral. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
- ↑ "Bottomless Pit". Death Grips. Retrieved 2015-10-21.
- 1 2 3 4 "Overview for Karen Black". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
- 1 2 3 4 "Karen Black obituary". theguardian.com. 2013-08-09. Retrieved 2013-08-10.
- ↑ "Show Business: Boom in Black". TIME. 1975-06-09. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
- ↑ Elder, Robert K. (2008-09-19). "Karen Black reflects on her life and career". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
- ↑ "'Five Easy Pieces' Actress Karen Black Dies at 74". The Hollywood Reporter. 2013-08-08. Retrieved 2013-08-10.
- ↑ "Actress Karen Black dies". chicagotribune.com. 2013-08-09. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
- ↑ "Karen Black, Easy Rider actress dies aged 74". BBC News US and Canada. 2013-08-09. Retrieved 2013-08-10.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Karen Black. |
- Karen Black at the Internet Movie Database
- Karen Black at the Internet Broadway Database
- Karen Black at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- "The Films of Karen Black" on YouTube, video compilation, 3 min.
- Karen Black at AllMovie
- Works by or about Karen Black in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Stuck! movie site
- Podcast interview March 2007
- Karen Black — The Terror Trap
- Karen Black at Find-A-Grave
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