Person

Karen Black

1939 – 2013 · aged 74

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

Born
1 Jul 1939 · Park Ridge
Died
8 Aug 2013 · Santa Monica

Life timeline

Their life from birth to death. On the timeline, world events of the time are shown faintly.

Showing 85 years
  1. 1 Jul 1939BornBorn in Park Ridge
  2. 1977AwardSitges Film Festival Best Actress award
  3. 8 Aug 2013DiedDied in Santa Monica

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Meanwhile in the world

Major world events during their lifetime (1939 – 2013).

  1. 1939 – 1940Winter War
  2. 1939 – 1945World War II
  3. 1940 – 1945Auschwitz concentration camp
  4. 1941Attack on Pearl Harbor
  5. 1941 – 1945Eastern Front
  6. 1941Operation Barbarossa
  7. 1942 – 1943Battle of Stalingrad
  8. 1945Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
  9. 1945 – 1946Nuremberg trials
  10. 19501950 FIFA World Cup
  11. 1950 – 1953Korean War
  12. 1953 – 1959Cuban Revolution
  13. 19541954 FIFA World Cup
  14. 1955 – 1975Vietnam War
  15. 1956Hungarian Revolution of 1956
  16. 1956Suez Crisis
  17. 19581958 FIFA World Cup
  18. 1959Antarctic Treaty System
  19. 19621962 FIFA World Cup
  20. 1962Cuban Missile Crisis
  21. 19661966 FIFA World Cup
  22. 1966 – 1976Cultural Revolution
  23. 1968Prague Spring
  24. 1969Apollo 11 Moon landing
  25. 19721972 Summer Olympics
  26. 19741974 FIFA World Cup
  27. 19781978 FIFA World Cup
  28. 1978 – 1979Iranian Revolution
  29. 1979 – 1989Soviet–Afghan War
  30. 1980 – 1988Iran–Iraq War
  31. 19841984 Summer Olympics
  32. 1985Schengen Agreement
  33. 19891989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
  34. 1989Fall of the Berlin Wall
  35. 19901990 FIFA World Cup
  36. 1991Dissolution of the Soviet Union
  37. 19941994 FIFA World Cup
  38. 1994 – 1996First Chechen War
  39. 19981998 FIFA World Cup
  40. 2001 – 2021War in Afghanistan

Biography

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.

Text from the Wikipedia article Karen Black, CC BY-SA 4.0

About this information

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