Karen Black, one of the icons of 1970s American cinema, has died. From 1969 through 1976 she starred in Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Drive He Said, the Kris Kristofferson vehicle Cisco Pike, Portnoy’s Complaint, The Outfit (with Robert Duvall), The Great Gatsby, Robert Altman’s Nashville and Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot. She excelled at playing sexually liberated and kooky women, generally downscale and down on their luck. Her New York Times obit quoted this 1975 appraisal from Time magazine:
“Black brings to all her roles a freewheeling combination of raunch and winsomeness. Sometimes she is kittenish. At other times she has an overripe quality that makes her look like the kind of woman who gets her name tattooed on sailors.”
My favorite Karen Black performance was her Oscar-nominated turn in Five Easy Pieces (1970) as Rayette, the girlfriend of Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson). Brimming with alienation, Bobby is working as an oil field roughneck, and the diner waitress Rayette falls in love with him. However, he comes from a highbrow family of classical musicians, and when he must revisit their world, it’s heartbreakingly clear that Rayette isn’t going to fit in.
Here’s the most famous scene in Five Easy Pieces from my Most Memorable Movie Food Scenes. Karen doesn’t have much to do in this scene (besides reacting to Jack), but it’s nice to see her again.