Karen Black, Easy Rider actress dies aged 74

Karen Black earned an Oscar
nomination for her role
opposite Jack Nicholson in Five
Easy Pieces
Hollywood star Karen
Black, who featured in cult
films such as Five Easy
Pieces and Nashville, has
died aged 74.
Hugely prolific, the Illinois-born
actress appeared in more than
100 movies over a career
spanning 40 years.
She shot to fame in 1969,
starring as a prostitute in Easy
Rider opposite Peter Fonda and
Dennis Hopper.
She died at a clinic in Los
Angeles, three years after she
was diagnosed with cancer.
Her fourth husband, Stephen
Eckelberry, posted the news
on his Facebook page.
"It is with great sadness that I
have to report that my wife
and best friend, Karen Black
has just passed away, only a
few minutes ago," he wrote.
"Thank you all for all your
prayers and love, they meant
so much to her as they did to
me."
Black landed her breakout role
in 1969's Easy Rider
Stars paid tribute to Black on
Twitter, including Mia Farrow
who tweeted: "Wonderful
Karen Black rest in peace."
Actress Juliette Lewis said:
"Karen Black was my mentor
and a 2nd mother to me. She
inspired everyone she came in
contact with. Her spirit/strength
My luv [sic] is beyond words."
Black, who was raised in a
Chicago suburb, almost always
played troubled, neurotic
characters.
She earned an Oscar
nomination and a Golden Globe
award for her role as Rayette
Dipesto in 1970 film Five Easy
Pieces, opposite Jack Nicholson,
as a waitress who dates an
upper-class dropout.
She again starred with
Nicholson a year later in Drive,
He Said, which Nicholson also
directed.
Final roles
Black went on to star with
Robert Redford and Farrow in
1974's The Great Gatsby, for
which she won a best
supporting actress Golden
Globe for her role as Tom
Buchanan's mistress Myrtle
Wilson.
She later scored a Grammy
nomination in 1975 after
writing and performing songs
for Robert Altman's musical
drama Nashville, in which she
played a country singer.
Black played Connie Black, a
glamorous but mediocre
country singer, in Nashville
The actress also starred as a
jewel thief in what turned out
to be Alfred Hitchcock's last
movie, Family Plot, released in
1976.
"We used to read each other
poems and limericks and he
tried to catch me on my
vocabulary,'' she later said of
Hitchcock.
"He once said, 'You seem very
perspicacious today, Miss
Black.' I said, 'Oh, you mean
keenly perceptive?'
"So I got him this huge, gold-
embossed dictionary that said
Diction-Harry, at the end of the
shoot."
By the end of the 1970s, Black
struggled to find quality roles
and appeared mainly low-
budget horror movies. In the
80s she moved into television,
filming roles in series such as
Miami Vice, Party of Five and
Law and Order.
In 1993, she acted in a film
which would turn out to actor
River Phoenix's last, following
his death from a drug
overdose. Dark Blood was
finally completed last year and
was shown at a number of
international film festivals.
According to film site IMDB,
the actress had completed two
recent projects - the drama
She Loves Me Not, starring
Cary Elwes and the
forthcoming film The Being
Experience - opposite Alan
Cumming and Terrence
Howard.
Despite Black's extensive
filmography, she had to turn to
the public to help pay her
healthcare costs after she was
diagnosed with cancer.
Her online funding appeal
raised more than $60,000
(£38,500).
She is survived by Eckelberry
and two children.
Black starred in Alfred
Hitchcock's final film, Family
Portrait

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