Karen Black

Also known as Karen Blanche Black

American actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter (1939-2013)

OverviewAI-generated

Karen Black (1939–2013) was an American actor, singer, screenwriter, and singer-songwriter. Born in Park Ridge, Illinois, she began her professional work in 1959. Black was educated at Northwestern University and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her musical work included composing and performing on the voice instrument.

She was married to L. M. Kit Carson, and they had a child named Hunter Carson. Black’s sibling was Gail Brown. Her written works include *Back to the Water*, *Long Stories Short*, *Race into Murder*, *Defending Earth*, and *Stories for the Dead of Night*. She died of natural causes in Santa Monica.

Synthesized by Vinony from 42 facts across 8 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, TMDb, Firecrawl, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works: 10

Top works

Back to the Water
Long Stories Short
Race into Murder
Defending Earth
Stories for the Dead of Night

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Acting · Park Ridge, Illinois, USA

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 various 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 over 50 years and includes nearly 200 credits in…

Known for

Airports2025
Deadly Dolls: Deepest Cuts — (archive footage)2018
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief — Self (archive footage)2015
Bottomless Pit — Karen Black2015
Wild in Blue — Justine2014
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films — Linda Magnusson (archive footage) (uncredited)2014
Return to the 5 & Dime: An Interview with Ed Graczyk — Self – Joanne (archive footage)2014
Ooga Booga — Mrs. Allardyce2013
She Loves Me Not — Karla2013
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia — Self (archive footage)2013

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Female
Country: United States
Active from: 1939
Active to: 2013

Discography

Babe Oh Babe2021
Dreaming of You (1971–76)2021

Member of

The New Christy Minstrels

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 10,354
Total plays: 59,498

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities
· 1973 · cited 19,790x
AN EXAMINATION OF THE DEGTJAREFF METHOD FOR DETERMINING SOIL ORGANIC MATTER, AND A PROPOSED MODIFICATION OF THE CHROMIC ACID TITRATION METHOD
· 1934 · cited 17,138x
Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019
· 2020 · cited 15,951x
Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis
· 2022 · cited 13,855x
Harmonizing the Metabolic Syndrome
· 2009 · cited 12,610x

via Crossref · CC0

Official website

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karenblack.net →

Link to the official site · 18,591 chars · not written by Vinony

Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Given name: Karen
Family name: Black
Gender: female
Citizenship: United States
Place of birth: Park Ridge
Place of death: Santa Monica
Child: Hunter Carson
Sibling: Gail Brown
Occupation: singer-songwriter
Educated at: Northwestern University
Languages spoken: English language
Native language: English language
Religion: Scientology
Field of work: music composing
Instrument: voice
Official website: www.karenblack.net
Image: KarenBlackDIFFApr10.jpg

Show 10 more facts

Commons category: Karen Black
date of birth: 1939-07-01
date of death: 2013-08-08
nominated for: Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
manner of death: natural causes
name in native language: Karen Black
start of work period: 1959-00-00
writing language: English language
birth name: Karen Blanche Ziegler
end of work period: 2013-00-00

Sources (6)

via Wikidata · CC0

~27 min read

Encyclopedic overview

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.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Karen Black” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.