The polyphonically, unfairly talented and fiendishly busy actress
Karen Black (who’s also my good
friend and upcoming interviewee in the print edition of Cinema Retro) recently premiered her own one-woman show, “How I
Learned to Stop Worrying and Sing the Song†in Washington, DC, to rave reviews.
She received three standing ovations and by her own admission, “I almost
couldn’t stand there and accept that much acknowledgment!†In the show Karen
recounts her life through musical interludes and anecdotes, beginning as a
struggling actress in New York in the early 60s (where she famously said “no
thanks†to Lee Strasberg after he invited her to join The Actors Studio),
through her move to hippie-era Hollywood and her steady rise to fame as one of
the leading actresses of the 70s. Karen treats the audience to absorbing
first-hand accounts of her work on such legendary films as Easy Rider (1969), her Oscar-nominated performance in Five Easy Pieces (1970), The Day of the Locust (1975), Nashville (1975), Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) and
more.
If you’re surprised to learn Karen Black is also a singer, don’t be. She
can absolutely floor you with her
voice. If you remember the scene in Nashville, in
which she plays country star Connie White, the song she performs in front of
the Grand Ole Opry she not only composed herself but made it sound like a
viable country hit from that period. Karen grew up in a musical family in
suburban Chicago
and her grandfather was the esteemed classical musician Arthur Ziegler, who was
the first violinist for the Chicago Symphony. Another film in which she sings
is Henry Jaglom’s quirky comedy Can She
Bake A Cherry Pie? (1983) and the more recent Firecracker (2004) in which she plays a carnival chanteuse and really shows off her
range. Henry Jaglom, Karen’s long-time friend from Actors Studio days back in New York, cast Karen in
his runaway indie hit Hollywood Dreams (2006)
as a vainglorious actress of a certain age who is having a secret tryst with an
A-list “gay†actor with a secret: he’s straight. Between rendez-vous with Karen’s character Luna, he toys with the idea of
“coming out†against the advice of his managers.
She also appears in Jaglom’s upcoming Irene
in Time (2007) and this year’s Suffering
Man’s Charity (2007), directed by Alan Cumming. I’m eager for everyone to
read the interview with Karen in the next issue. Her career is a revelation to
those who pigeonhole her as a fixture of
70s disaster or horror flicks, even if she did important work in both of
those genres as well.