She worked with Jack Nicholson, Robert Altman and more – and had a sideline in spectral, beautiful songwriting. As her lost songs are released, those close to Karen Black remember her
“I first met Karen Black in 1970 in New Mexico, on a film called The Gunfight, with Johnny Cash and Kirk Douglas,” says actor Keith Carradine, 71, calling from his Dodge Charger on a warm California afternoon. “I was 20, not old enough to drink, too young to vote, a young man with typical interests and I was stunned. Here was this beautiful, beautiful woman. I was intimidated. I was shy. I shut up and I paid attention.”
She would soon be directed by Robert Altman, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Nicholson, John Schlesinger and more, and earn three Golden Globe nominations, but at 30 years old, with a decade of theatre and TV roles behind her, Black was only just establishing a name for herself in New Hollywood cinema in 1970. The Illinois-born actor had helped Francis Ford Coppola with the making of his first film, You’re a Big Boy Now; and played the flame-haired hooker in Easy Rider, tripping on acid in a New Orleans cemetery with Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Toni Basil. Most importantly, she had just starred opposite Nicholson as singing waitress Rayette in Bob Rafelson’s meandering 1970 picaresque Five Easy Pieces – a role that would earn her first Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.
