Karen Black was oddly alluring, with that wide sly smile and those slightly off-kilter eyes, and The New York Timesonce called her "something of a freak, a beautiful freak." Her friend Peter Fonda says that's what made her so intriguing.
"She wasn't a conventional-looking woman," he told NPR. "And she took that unconventional look and made it interesting, made you want to see more of it."
On screen, she parlayed that allure into quirky character roles that in many ways captured the zeitgeist of the 1960s and '70s. Black starred in some of the most important movies of those decades, at a time when American independent film was becoming a real artistic and commercial force. Later, in a career that encompassed Broadway, TV and more than 100 films, she went from being a counterculture darling to a queen of kitsch horror. She died this week at age 74, of complications from cancer.
Her breakthrough was with Fonda in the 1969 hippie classic Easy Rider, playing a New Orleans prostitute who drops acid with him and Dennis Hopper — in a cemetery. Their trip was disturbing, intriguing and unforgettable.