Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Aug 8, 2013 20:26:40 GMT -6
Karen Black dead at 74, known For 'Five Easy Pieces,' 'Nashville'
Karen Black has died at 74.
Her husband, Stephen Eckelberry, confirmed the death on Facebook on Thursday. The actress, famous for her performances in "Five Easy Pieces," "The Great Gatsby," "Easy Rider" and "Nashville," had been battling cancer for the last few years.
Diagnosed with ampullary cancer in November 2010, the actress sought crowd-funding when her disease recurred in June 2012. Black's husband, Stephen Eckelberry, turned to the website GoFundMe.com, to raise money to support a two-month clinical treatment in Europe for the actress.
Although Black's star had faded by that point, she was a major figure in the films of the 1970s.
Black had the good fortune to arrive on the Hollywood scene as the old studio order was fading and a new one -- guided by a greater sense of permissiveness and narrative complexity -- took its place.
She was not conventionally attractive, but in age where a gap-toothed Lauren Hutton could become a supermodel and actors like Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman, whose ethnic looks would have doomed them to character roles, took their place as leading men, Black became a symbol of New Hollywood.
Her films captured the zeitgeist of the period and her on-screen persona -- slightly daffy, somewhat blue collar -- was melded by the likes of Robert Altman, John Schlesinger, and Bob Rafelson.
Among her most famous roles was the pregnant girlfriend of Jack Nicholson's character in "Five Easy Pieces" (1971) for which she would receive an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
She would also play an aspiring actress in "Day of the Locusts" (1976), a country singer in "Nashville" (1975), a sexually confidant lover in "Portnoy's Complaint" (1973) and a kidnapper in Alfred Hitchcock's final film, "Family Plot" (1976).
In the 1980s, as the movie industry began to cast aside more personal filmmaking for more commercial blockbuster pictures, Black found herself moving to the horror genre, in movies such as "Trilogy of Terror" (1975), "Mirror Mirror" (1990) and "Children of the Night" (1991). Some of her later film roles included low-budget pictures like "My Suicidal Sweetheart" (2005) and "Curse of the Forty-Niner" (2002). According to IMDb, what should be her final film, "The Being Experience," starring Terrence Howard and Famke Janssen, is in post-production.
Karen Black has died at 74.
Her husband, Stephen Eckelberry, confirmed the death on Facebook on Thursday. The actress, famous for her performances in "Five Easy Pieces," "The Great Gatsby," "Easy Rider" and "Nashville," had been battling cancer for the last few years.
Diagnosed with ampullary cancer in November 2010, the actress sought crowd-funding when her disease recurred in June 2012. Black's husband, Stephen Eckelberry, turned to the website GoFundMe.com, to raise money to support a two-month clinical treatment in Europe for the actress.
Although Black's star had faded by that point, she was a major figure in the films of the 1970s.
Black had the good fortune to arrive on the Hollywood scene as the old studio order was fading and a new one -- guided by a greater sense of permissiveness and narrative complexity -- took its place.
She was not conventionally attractive, but in age where a gap-toothed Lauren Hutton could become a supermodel and actors like Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman, whose ethnic looks would have doomed them to character roles, took their place as leading men, Black became a symbol of New Hollywood.
Her films captured the zeitgeist of the period and her on-screen persona -- slightly daffy, somewhat blue collar -- was melded by the likes of Robert Altman, John Schlesinger, and Bob Rafelson.
Among her most famous roles was the pregnant girlfriend of Jack Nicholson's character in "Five Easy Pieces" (1971) for which she would receive an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
She would also play an aspiring actress in "Day of the Locusts" (1976), a country singer in "Nashville" (1975), a sexually confidant lover in "Portnoy's Complaint" (1973) and a kidnapper in Alfred Hitchcock's final film, "Family Plot" (1976).
In the 1980s, as the movie industry began to cast aside more personal filmmaking for more commercial blockbuster pictures, Black found herself moving to the horror genre, in movies such as "Trilogy of Terror" (1975), "Mirror Mirror" (1990) and "Children of the Night" (1991). Some of her later film roles included low-budget pictures like "My Suicidal Sweetheart" (2005) and "Curse of the Forty-Niner" (2002). According to IMDb, what should be her final film, "The Being Experience," starring Terrence Howard and Famke Janssen, is in post-production.