Background and career
Karen Blanche Black (née Ziegler; July 1, 1939 – August 8, 2013) was an American actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter. She rose to prominence for her work in studio and independent films in the 1970s, frequently portraying eccentric and offbeat characters, and established herself as a figure of New Hollywood. Her career spanned 50 years and includes nearly 200 credits in both independent and mainstream films. Black received numerous accolades throughout her career, including two Golden Globe Awards, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. A native of suburban Chicago, Black studied theater at Northwestern University before dropping out and relocating to New York City. She performed on Broadway in 1965 before making her major film debut in Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now (1966). Black relocated to California and was cast as an LSD-tripping prostitute in Dennis Hopper's road film Easy Rider (1969). That led to a co-starring role in the drama Five Easy Pieces (1970), in which she played a hopeless waitress, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Black made her first major commercial picture with the disaster film Airport 1975 (1974), and her subsequent appearance as Myrtle Wilson in The Great Gatsby (1974) won her a second Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Black played a glamorous country singer in Robert Altman's ensemble musical drama Nashville (1975), also writing and performing two songs for the soundtrack, for which she received a nomination for a Grammy Award. Her portrayal of an aspiring actress in John Schlesinger's drama The Day of the Locust (also 1975) earned her a third Golden Globe nomination, this time for Best Actress. Black subsequently took on four roles in Dan Curtis' anthology horror film Trilogy of Terror (1975), followed by Curtis' supernatural horror feature, Burnt Offerings (1976). The same year, she played a kidnapping accomplice in Alfred Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot. In 1982, Black played a transsexual in Robert Altman's Broadway production of Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, a role she reprised in Altman's subsequent film adaptation. She next starred in the comedy Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983), followed by Tobe Hooper's remake of Invaders from Mars (1986). For much of the 1990s and 2000s, Black starred in a variety of arthouse, independent, and horror films, as well as writing her own screenplays. She had a leading role as a villainous mother in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003), which cemented her status as a cult horror icon. Black continued to star in low-profile films throughout the early 2010s, as well as working as a playwright before her death from ampullary cancer in 2013.
Black was born Karen Blanche Ziegler on July 1, 1939, in Park Ridge, Illinois, the third child of Elsie Mary (née Reif), a writer of several prize-winning children's novels, and Norman Arthur Ziegler, an engineer and businessman. Her paternal grandfather was Arthur Charles Ziegler, a classical musician and first violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She had a brother and a sister, Gail Brown. Black was of German, Czech, and Norwegian descent. The Zieglers came to the United States from Neukirch, Württemberg, Germany. Black and her siblings were raised at 224 N. Greenwood Ave. in Park Ridge, and often spent time on her uncle's farm near Green Bay, Wisconsin. As a young teenager, she aspired to have a career as a stage actress, seeking out summer stock theater job opportunities. "From the age of 13 I'd rush out during vacations to find work in summer stock," Black recalled. "I started by cleaning toilets and by the time I was 16 I was a prop-girl and in the chorus line singing, and at 17 I got my first real acting, paid job."
Black attended Maine East High School for her freshman year and part of her sophomore year. She resumed her education at Jefferson High School in Lafayette, Indiana and attended Purdue University for one year, then transferred to Northwestern University, where she majored in theatre arts, studying under Alvina Krause. Black completed two years of studies at NU before dropping out. She later reflected on her training unfavorably, stating: I would say that the college training was very lousy, and I don't think that people learn by being invalidated... Acting teachers, not all of them but many, seem to think that beating up their students and invalidating them will make them better, which I think is completely wrong. And at that age, you don't realize that this sick person is really projecting all their neurosis onto you, you think that you're the one who's damaged... Alvina Krause would not validate and would not allow. I think she had favorites, and you could never figure out why you weren't a favorite, and it never made any sense. The thing you have to remember is that if a person is making you feel bad about yourself, that person is going to be in his or her own world. They are lost in their own universe.
In 1960, Black moved to New York City to pursue an acting career, residing in a cold water flat in Manhattan. She took odd jobs working as a secretary, a front desk person at a hotel, and at an insurance office, and lived on "thirty dollars a week." Black initially began performing with the Rockefeller Players, a theater troupe in Westwood, New Jersey. She briefly joined at the Actors Studio, but left shortly after enrolling, later commenting: "How can a man who isn't an actor teach you how to act?" Black made her screen debut with a minor role in the independent film The Prime Time (1960), which she would later deem "the worst film ever made." Disillusioned by this foray into film, Black returned to work in theater. She worked as an understudy in the Broadway production of Take Her, She's Mine in December 1961 under director George Abbott. She made her formal Broadway debut in 1965's The Playroom, which received favorable reviews and for which she was nominated for a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Actress. In 1966, she appeared with José Ferrer in a stage production of After the Fall at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, earning an Angel award for best supporting actress. Black returned to film with a leading role in the comedy You're a Big Boy Now (1966), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, portraying the love interest of a young male student. The film earned Black favorable reviews, and the experience prompted her to relocate to Los Angeles. Beginning in 1967, she appeared in guest roles in several television series, including The F.B.I., Run for Your Life, The Big Valley, 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 counterculture film Easy Rider; the first choice for the role was Lana Wood, who had turned it down. Black's sequence in the film was cut from 16 hours of footage. The following year, Black appeared as Rayette, the waitress girlfriend of Jack Nicholson, in the film Five Easy Pieces (1970), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and earned her first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film.
Black had a supporting role as the girlfriend of a heroin addict in Born to Win (1971) opposite George Segal and Robert De Niro, followed by a role in Jack Nicholson's directorial debut, Drive, He Said, as a promiscuous faculty wife; and the Western A Gunfight, opposite Kirk Douglas and Johnny Cash, in which she portrayed a saloon barmaid. Black followed these roles with a part in Cisco Pike (1972) opposite Kris Kristofferson and Gene Hackman, and subsequently played a foul-mouthed fashion model in Portnoy's Complaint (1972). She had a lead role opposite Christopher Plummer in the Canadian-produced horror film The Pyx (1973), playing a prostitute embroiled in a series of occult murders, and later appeared in The Outfit (1973) with Robert Duvall. Black had the titular role of Laura in the crime film Little Laura and Big John (1973), playing a runaway moll of the Ashley gang, a film which "aped" the success of Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Shortly after, she appeared in the comedy Rhinoceros (1974) with Gene Wilder. Black's first major commercial film was the disaster feature Airport 1975 (1974), in which she played Nancy Pryor, a stewardess forced to fly a plane after a midair collision. She subsequently portrayed 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 1975, she played multiple roles in Dan Curtis' televised anthology film Trilogy of Terror: the segments, all written by Richard Matheson, were named after the women involved in the plot — a plain college professor seemingly seduced by a handsome cad of a student ("Julie"), a pair of sisters who squabble over their father's inheritance ("Millicent and Therese"), and the unknowing owner of a cursed Zuni fetish that comes to life and pursues her relentlessly ("Amelia"). The movie was widely praised and has an enduring legacy. It has been praised as a "must watch for horror fans".
Black received her third Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress for her role as an aspiring starlet in 1930s Hollywood in John Schlesinger's tragic drama The Day of the Locust (1975). Though the film earned her critical notice, Black recalled the production being profoundly troubled and possibly hindering her career:
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
