Karen Black

Black's range kept surprising critics. In 1975 alone she starred in Robert Altman's Nashville as a glamorous country singer, writing and performing two songs for the soundtrack, which earned her a Grammy nomination. The same year she took on four roles in Dan Curtis's anthology horror Trilogy of Terror and played an aspiring actress in The Day of the Locust, receiving a third Golden Globe nomination. She also appeared in Burnt Offerings (1976) and Family Plot, Alfred Hitchcock's final film. In 1982 she played a trans woman on Broadway in Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, directed by Altman, and reprised the role in the film adaptation. Then came Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983) and Tobe Hooper's Invaders from Mars (1986).

Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s she worked steadily in indie, arthouse, and horror films, also writing screenplays. A new generation discovered her as the villainous mother in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003), cementing her cult horror status. She kept acting and writing plays into the 2000s. Karen Black died on August 8, 2013, from ampullary cancer, aged 74. Her career spanned 53 years and nearly 200 credits, and she left behind two Golden Globes and an Oscar nomination. Her work in the 1970s, with its offbeat and eccentric roles, made her a defining figure of New Hollywood.