Karen Black - biography

“How odd - to be working for only two minutes at a time.”

“If you can write it, I can be it.”

“If you didn’t know that I am an actress, I don’t think you could tell from my lifestyle.  I cook and cook and cook.  I like to be with my daughter.  She’s 16, so of course I bore her.”

“If I turn on the television, am I to believe that that is America?  I’m sorry, I don’t believe that’s America.”

“We’d do limericks together.  One day, he pulled up his shirt to show me his belly-button, which he didn’t have.  He’d had an operation and when they sewed him up, they took it away.  His belly-button was gone!”

“I love coloring books.  I keep some by my bed.”

“I love playing strong women, even if they’re nuts.”

“I mean, if I were out in the desert and I’d no one to do it with, I still wouldn’t do it with girls.”

“I am the least intimidating person.  I think I would have done better in my career if I were a little more intimidating.  Even the maid who comes to work for me once a week has found out that she can just trample over me...  I’m a Cancer!  We are not ferocious people.”

“I dislike when people try to pigeonhole me, when all I want is to do good work.”

“I love what I do, so it’s not tiring.  If I worked at a computer or drove a truck, I’d be dead in a week.”

“I’ve been invited to do a trio with a fantastic jazz guitarist and a harmonica player.”

“Illiteracy is rampant.  People are out of communication.”

“It’s most interesting to be embarrassed by a question - or rather, that my answer will embarrass you.”

“There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

Karen Black has appeared in the following films:
You’re a Big Boy Now (1966)
Easy Rider (1969)
Hard Contract (1969)
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
A Gunfight (1971)
Born to Win (1971)
Drive, He Said (1971)
Cisco Pike (1972)
The Outfit (1973)
The Pyx (1973)
Little Laura and Big John (1973)
Airport 1975 (1974)
Rhinoceros (1974)
The Great Gatsby (1974)
Law and Disorder (1974)
The Day of the Locust (1975)
Nashville (1975)
Ace Up My Sleeve (1976)
Burnt Offerings (1976)
Family Plot (1976)
Capricorn One (1978)
In Praise of Older Women (1978)
Chanel Solitaire (1981)
La Donna giusta (1982)
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)
Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983)
Growing Pains (1984)
Savage Dawn (1985)
Martin’s Day (1985)
Invaders from Mars (1986)
It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987)
The Legendary Life of Ernest Hemingway (1988)
Out of the Dark (1989)
Mirror Mirror (1990)
Judgement (1992)
Caged Fear (1992)
Dark Blood (1993)
Dogtown (1996)
Conceiving Ada (1997)
Light Speed (1998)
Charades (1998)
Sugar: The Fall of the West (1998)
The Underground Comedy Movie (1999)
The Independent (2000)
The Donor (2001)
Soulkeeper (2001)
Hard Luck (2001)
A Light in the Darkness (2002)
Teknolust (2002)
House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
America Brown (2004)
Hollywood Dreams (2006)
Suffering Man’s Charity (2007)
Contamination (2008)
A Single Woman (2008)
Double Duty (2009)
Repo Chick (2009)


Karen Black composed the score for the following films:
Nashville (1975)
Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983)


Karen Black contributed to the screenplay for the following films:
Charades (1998)