Karen Black was one of the "countercultural possible stars" who emerged with the men of the 70's. You can find Karen Black in Easy Rider with Fonda and Hopper, and in a major role with Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces. That her looks weren't conventional was part of the deal. She did play sexual parts, too -- like in "Portnoy's Complaint" with Richard Benjamin(Black plays a gal nicknamed "The Monkey" for her sexual moves), and in Drive He Said (with Bruce Dern, also of "that generation") for director Jack Nicholson. Black and Bruce Dern reteamed to support Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby, where Black's role was "white trash among the wealthy," -- rich man Dern's mistress.
The trouble began for Karen Black when various studios and directors tried to make a "regular star" out of her. I guess she must have taken on a contract with Universal and Universal put her in "Airport 1975," and she didn't quite fit the cheapjack melodrama.
Black's biggest opportunity to become a major "serious" film star came with "Day of the Locust" (1975) by director John Schesinger (Midnight Cowboy)...prestige director, prestige novel, prestige Paramount movie, Karen Black top billed. And it was a big arty flop. The material was simply too downbeat and symbolic to be a hit.
Came 1976, Karen Black and her old pal Bruce Dern reteamed yet again -- surprisingly -- to star in Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot. A Universal contract deal for Black. Everything about that movie seemed "wobbly" -- Hitchocck was no longer in his prime(despite a recent hit in Frenzy) and Black and Dern turned out to be "the lesser stars who said yes" after Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson(Dern's pal) turned them down. "Family Plot" ended up as Hitchocck's final film, a small film but not a bad one, but Karen Black didn't seem much of a star in it(she was outclassed by co-star Barbara Harris in the film.)
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roger1 (3626)
a year ago
Oddly, amidst all these movie roles, Karen Black did a TV movie that turned out to be famous. It was called "Trilogy of Terror" -- three different stories, only one of which was memorable but pretty scary for TV: it was about a "devil doll" with a knife chasing Black all around her apartment with murder on his lil biddy mind.
Still, the fact that Black DID a TV movie in the same year she did "Day of the Locust" suggested that she wasn't really cracked up to be a star. And within a few short years, she wasn't a star anymore.
I'll concede that her looks may have been part of it. Her offbeat beauty and lower class manner FIT the counterculture of Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, and Drive He Said. But when she tried to move up and over into "mainstream film" (Airport 1975, an Alfred Hitchcock movie)...she looked lacking.
Still -- she's passed away now and her career HAS those counterculture classics, and Hitchcock's final film, and even the camp stardom of Airport 1975 -- there's a whole book on 70's movies with the title "The Stewardess is Flying the Plane!}
That would be Karen Black....
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