Karen Black entered Northwestern University at 15 and left two years later. She studied under Lee Strasberg in New York and worked in a number of off-Broadway roles. She made a critically acclaimed debut on Broadway in 1965 in "The Playroom". Her first big film role was in You're a Big Boy Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Shortly afterwards, she appeared as Marcia in the TV series The Second Hundred Years.

The film that made her a star was Easy Rider, where she worked with Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and a supporting actor named Jack Nicholson. She appeared with Nicholson again the next year when they starred in Five Easy Pieces, which garnered an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for Karen. Her roles mainly consisted of waitresses, hookers and women on the edge. Some of her later films were disappointments at the box office, but she did receive another Golden Globe for The Great Gatsby. One role for which she is well remembered is that of the jewel thief in Alfred Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot. Another is as the woman terrorized in her apartment by a murderous Zuni doll come to life in the well received TV movie Tales of Terror. After a number of forgettable movies, she again won rave reviews for her role in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Since then, her film career has been busy, but the quality of the films has been uneven.



Measurements: 35-24-35 1/2 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine) Godmother of Dylan Purcell. Has a cult glam-punk band named after her. Called The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Kembra Pfahler is the American performance artist and singer/rock musician who fronts it. She is known for the often sexual nature of her pieces. Guitarist Abby Normal featured a song titled "Scream Karen Black" on his solo project album Midnight Creature Feature Picture Show. Wrote the songs "Memphis" and "Rolling Stone" which she performed in character as country singer Connie White in the movie Nashville (1975). As a result she was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Series. Made her Broadway debut in 1965's "The Playroom", which ran less than a month. She received great reviews, however, and nominated for a Drama Circle Critics Award for Best Actress. The second daughter of William and Elsie Ziegler, her mother, who went by her maiden name of Elsie Reif (1908-1987), was a writer of several prize-winning children's novels; her paternal grandfather was Arthur Ziegler, a classical musician and the first violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Considers Kris Kristofferson to be the most attractive male star she has ever worked with. She especially liked his voice.