Biography for
Karen Black (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

1 July 1939, Park Ridge, Illinois, USA

Birth Name

Karen Blanche Ziegler

Height

5' 7" (1.70 m)

Mini Biography

Karen Black was born Karen Blanche Ziegler in 1939. She entered Northwestern University at 15 in 1954 and left two years later. She studied under Lee Strasberg in New York and worked in a number of off-Broadway plays. In 1959 she made her film debut with a small role in The Prime Time (1959), then was offscreen for seven years until her appearance in You're a Big Boy Now (1966), directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Shortly after wards, she appeared as Marcia in the TV series "The Second Hundred Years" (1967).

The film that made her a star was Easy Rider (1969), where she worked with Dennis Hopper. She appeared with Jack Nicholson the next year when in Five Easy Pieces (1970), 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 her supporting role in The Great Gatsby (1974). One role for which she is well remembered is that of the jewel thief in Alfred Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot (1976). Another is as the woman terrorized in her apartment by a murderous Zuni doll come to life in the well received TV movie Trilogy of Terror (1975) (TV). She continued to appear in mainstream films until the late 70s, when she turned to independent films for work. 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 (1982). Since then, her film career has been busy with countless largely unseen, low-budget films of uneven quality.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Tony Fontana <tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>

Spouse

Stephen Eckelberry	(27 September 1987 - present) 1 child
L.M. Kit Carson	(4 July 1975 - ?) (divorced) 1 child
Robert Burton	(18 April 1973 - October 1974) (divorced)
Charles Black	(1955 - ?) (divorced)

Trivia

Measurements: 35-24-35 1/2 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

Mother of Hunter Carson and Celine Eckelberry (adopted).

Godmother of Dylan Purcell.

Is the highest ranked actress on the "Oracle of Bacon" website (and 21st overall), which uses the IMDB database to determine which actors can be linked by the highest number of other actors in the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" trivia game.

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.

She and her husband Eckelberry are active in the Church of Scientology.

Guitarist Abby Normal featured a song titled "Scream Karen Black" on his solo project album Midnight Creature Feature Picture Show.

She adopted a daughter, Celine Eckelberry, with her fourth husband Stephen. Celine was born in November of 1987.

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.

Launched her career as a playwright in May 2007 with the opening of "Missouri Waltz" in Los Angeles; Black starred in the play as well. The piece is conceived as a play with music, rather than a musical.

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.

Attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, for two years before moving to New York, where she studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actor's Studio and appeared in a number of Off-Broadway productions.

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.

Was married to younger actor Robert Burton, her second husband, at the time they filmed the cult TV-movie Trilogy of Terror (1975) (TV). Ms. Black initially turned the role down but eventually accepted when Robert was selected for a lead role in one of the three segments. Karen plays a college English teacher and he plays an obsessed student who stalks her. The couple was already divorced (after less than two years) by the time the TV-movie premiered in March of 1975.

Considers Kris Kristofferson to be the most attractive male star she has ever worked with. She especially liked his voice.

Personal Quotes

My God, there aren't any more movie stars, which is terrific with me, it's very healthy. A lot of love now occurs in the business, people helping each other to do good work, getting high on each other's success. Isn't that great?

[on the craft of acting] That's really what acting is: you imagine things, then you respond naturally to what you've imagined.

Every time you do a part you try to find out what it would really be like to be that person, no matter who she is.