Actress Karen Black, star of such films as Five Easy Pieces and Trilogy of Terror died today in Los Angeles. She was 74.
Born in 1939 in Illinois, she studied acting at Northwestern University until she dropped out and moved to New York. Summer stock and theater were Black's staples, eventually debuting on Broadway in 1961. Her first major film role was in Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now. Black is best known to "mainstream" audiences for her roles in films like Five Easy Pieces (a role for which she was nominated for an Oscar), Easy Rider, and Nashville, which represented a time when independent films were emerging as a viable, respectable segment of the film world.
Black's career took a "turn" in 1975 when she took the lead in Trilogy of Terror, a made-for-tv anthology film. (The "turn" reference comes from Hollywood Reporter, which to me comes off dismissive, as if she wasted her career.
Born in 1939 in Illinois, she studied acting at Northwestern University until she dropped out and moved to New York. Summer stock and theater were Black's staples, eventually debuting on Broadway in 1961. Her first major film role was in Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now. Black is best known to "mainstream" audiences for her roles in films like Five Easy Pieces (a role for which she was nominated for an Oscar), Easy Rider, and Nashville, which represented a time when independent films were emerging as a viable, respectable segment of the film world.
Black's career took a "turn" in 1975 when she took the lead in Trilogy of Terror, a made-for-tv anthology film. (The "turn" reference comes from Hollywood Reporter, which to me comes off dismissive, as if she wasted her career.
- 8/9/2013
- by Alyse Wax
- FEARnet
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