Hollywood actress Karen Black dies aged 74
Hollywood star Karen Black, who featured in cult films such as Easy Rider, Nashville and Five Easy Pieces, has died aged 74. Hugely prolific, the Illinois-born actress appeared in more than 100 movies over a career spanning 40 years. She died at a clinic in Los Angeles, three years after she was diagnosed with ampullary cancer. Her breakthrough role, in 1969, was as a prostitute who takes drugs with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider. Black, who was raised in a Chicago suburb, almost always played troubled, neurotic characters. Despite her impressive filmography, she had to turn to the public to help pay her healthcare costs. Her online funding appeal raised more than $60,000, according to her husband, Stephen Eckelberry. Black trained at the Actor's Studio in New York under the legendary acting teacher Lee Strassbergbefore making her film debut in 1966 with Francis Ford Coppola's early film "You're a Big Boy Now." She shot to stardom t...