Karen Black

Description

Karen Black (born July 1, 1939) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress, screenwriter, singer and songwriter. <p>Black was born Karen Blanche Ziegler in Park Ridge, Illinois, the daughter of Norman A. Ziegler and Elsie Reif, a writer of several prize-winning children's novels; her paternal grandfather was Arthur Ziegler, a classical musician and the first violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Her sister is actress Gail Brown. She attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, for two years, before moving to New York, where she appeared in a number of Off-Broadway productions. <p>Black made her Broadway debut in 1965's The Playroom, which received good reviews and for which she was nominated for a Drama Circle Critic Award for Best Actress. Her film debut was in The Prime Time (1960) and her first big role was as Amy Partlett in You're a Big Boy Now (1966), which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. She subsequently appeared on the TV series The Second Hundred Years...