had a great start to her career...
and then flamed out
shareYes - great performance in Five Easy Pieces, memorable work with Atman but then little of note.
The final years of her life were truly sad, too.
MovieChat Forums > Karen Black Discussion > had a great start to her career...
Trilogy of Terror-with that doll!!!!!š
shareShe was the only reason I enjoyed "Portnoy's Complaint". I recall one of her lines to Portnoy after a long bout of sex;
"My little virginia's so sore!"
Honestly, she looked weird and creepy with her lazy eye. I can see why few people wanted to cast her.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Karen_Black_%281973%29.jpg
Sheās absolutely beautiful man! The lazy eye just adds to her unique look! Have you not seen the pool scene in Burnt Offerings (1976) or her in a wetsuit in Killer Fish (1979)? Look, this woman can do anything and if I were ever to find myself say in a crashing airliner or even attacked by an evil Zuni fetish doll, she is who I would want by my side! Fast forward to current times, Zombie apocalypse? Surviving in a hostile environment, fighting zombies and wild lazy eyed sex. Who would Rick Grimes pick? Karen Black.
shareKind of sad to see so little discussion about her and her career. With out doubt the 1970s were her peak years in which we will best remember her. Though she continued a prolific acting career (in mostly lesser known things) through out the 80s, 90s and 2000s.
shareIronic, now that I think about it, anything I remember her for, & fondly at that had to do with horror. āBurnt Offerings & Trilogy of Terrorā. Well except for āNashvilleā which Iām amazed I still remember, but it had Keith āIām Easyā Carradine with that one hit wonder of his in it & even Jeff Goldenblum in one of his first roles I think.
But I was a big fan. But she hardly āfadedā away. One look at her IMDB page will tell you that, sheās rather prolific these days & still has things int he pipe so to speak. So sheās doing stuff, maybe sheās not the āstarā per se but sheās out there making money, so thatās the main thing.
Sheās had quite a interesting life & a long list of accomplishments if you believe she was a nobody known for only a couple of things. Again look at her IMDB page, youāll be amazed to learn of some of this stuff. Check out the āTriviaā section.
Sadly, Karen black passed away in 2013 at the age of 74; but you're right, she continued working (bonus points for her guest-starring in a "Miami Vice" episode 'Victims of Circumstances', since I LOVE that show so!), and I felt she always found a way to make her presence felt in whatever role (large or small) that she took on. I also feel that she was quite attractive, as well as having a unique cadence in the way of expressing herself (dialogue-wise, emotionally, or facial expressions) when acting. Just someone who did things a different way, and that stood out for me. I honestly can't think of any actress that's anything like her, before or since.
shareIāll say, there are two movies in post production that sheās in. Maybe you can visit her IMDB page to learn of the circumstances of those movies but yeah thatās too cool eh?!
share"A Walk in the Split Mind" sounds VERY interesting; definitely something Karen Black would be a part of, seeing that she was quite offbeat!
shareLike most actresses, IMHO she just aged out of a major career. She was born in 1939, so she was actually in her thirties in the 1970s, her heyday, and then as now there just weren't many roles available to women in their forties. Hell, there weren't many roles written for women in their thirties then, it's amazing that she had a heyday at all.
She's kept working, her filmography stretches across six decades. A real pro who was good at her job, in an industry that's crap for women.
That segment with the Zuni doll in Trilogy of Terror absolutely scared the heck out of me when I was a kid. I can't think of many actresses who could have pulled off being totally terrified without doing the screaming damsel in distress thing. Karen Black pulled it off. Her portrayal was a woman frightened but not willing to go down without a fight.
What was interesting about the terrifying Zuni doll sequence in Trilogy of Terror was that it was a "TV movie"(on NBC as I recall) that Karen Black made around the same time she was making it as a MOVIE star -- she was top billed in John Schlesinger's "Day of the Locust" the very same year(1975.) But she was quite willing to do a TV movie the same year -- one of whose segments arguably became the most famous thing she ever did. (Personally, I watched Trilogy of Terror with a group of college students in a dorm and there was some REAL screaming as that doll kept up his attacks, not to mention the groan of horrorat the terrifying twist ending.) This was a rare "TV Movie of the Week" that felt entertaining enough to play as a REAL movie(well, only that segment of the three.)
Also in 1975, Karen Black was cast in what turned out to be the final film of famous director Alfred Hitchcock. It was originally called "Deceit," but became "Family Plot" at release. When it was called "Deceit," both Karen Black and her co-star in the film, Bruce Dern, got separate articles in Time magazine describing each of them as "hot new young stars." But it didn't last for either of them as stars -- still Bruce Dern has survived to this day as a great character actor.
Love Bruce Dern! He is one of those rare actors who can play the heavy, a criminal or a totally comic character. I loved his performance in "Support Your Local Sheriff". He played such an idiot who thought he was a tough guy.
Dern: (after he shot a man): "Joe Danby and you better remember it."
James Garner as the Sheriff: "That's all I'm going to do, go around remembering your name."
Again, Karen Black did a great job in that Trilogy. She showed such great versatility as three (well actually four, if you count the twins) different women. I'm familiar with Family Plot. But oddly enough, even though Hitchcock is one of my favorite directors, I don't think I ever saw the movie in its entirety. I've only watched a bit of it when I caught it on TV.
Love Bruce Dern! He is one of those rare actors who can play the heavy, a criminal or a totally comic character. I loved his performance in "Support Your Local Sheriff". He played such an idiot who thought he was a tough guy.
Dern: (after he shot a man): "Joe Danby and you better remember it."
James Garner as the Sheriff: "That's all I'm going to do, go around remembering your name."
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So many great lines and moments in Support Your Local Sheriff. Garner puts Dern in a jail cell which..has no bars(not built yet.) But he puts red paint on the floor and indicates what happened to "the last man who tried to walk out." So Dern stays put in a cell with no bars.
Dern's outlaw father(Walter Brennan) shows up and finds his idiot son in a cell with no bars, finally saying "I said they'd never build the jail cell that could hold one of us Danbys. I guess this is the one?"
And then in my FAVORITE bit, Brennan walks away from the cell and talks to GArner in his office:
Brennan: You got a lousy jail in there.
That line, Brennan's reading of it...I laugh HARD every time.
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Again, Karen Black did a great job in that Trilogy. She showed such great versatility as three (well actually four, if you count the twins) different women.
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The opportunity for versatility probably drew her to the TV movie even as she was trying to make it as a movie star. Perhaps she sensed she better be ready to work in BOTH mediums...just in case the movie thing didn't work out. Which it didn't.
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I'm familiar with Family Plot. But oddly enough, even though Hitchcock is one of my favorite directors, I don't think I ever saw the movie in its entirety. I've only watched a bit of it when I caught it on TV.
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Well, it is the final film he made(1976) and for that it goes into the history books. Its flawed in certain ways -- the work of a "tired old man" with overlong scenes and exposition -- but in other ways, it is just GREAT, clearly demonstrating how Hitchcock paid attention to his script, his visuals , his characters, his structure -- EVERYTHING that made a Hitchcock film unique and always welcome.
Black got top billing , and then Dern next...but both of them were rather outdone by the other two leads of the movie -- Barbara Harris as Dern's girlfriend(a fake medium but a nice lady) and William Devane as Black's boyfriend(a sneering werewolf-in-a-suit of a villain.)
Recommended but..with reservations. Family Plot.