Written by James M. Tate / 8/16/2019 / No comments / dennis hopper , donald sutherland , henry jaglom , interview , jack nicholson , karen black , karen black interviews , seventies , sixties
KAREN BLACK REFELECTS ORIGINS & 'EASY' COUNTER-CULTURE
Karen Black on her career beginnings and sporadic cinema in this first of three parts of our transcribed Interview |
And to honor this incredible actress, who died Wednesday, at 74, we'll go back to the beginning as Karen discusses how she got into the business of acting...
Jack Nicholson and Karen Black in FIVE EASY PIECES |
And then the teacher had us helping people where he was directing plays in a carousel theater near town – and I would pick up all the half eaten hot dogs off the grounds, clean the toilets. And I finally got the part of Beer in a play called “George and Margaret," which she’s thirty, and when, you know, you’re fourteen “you can’t play thirty," and she was an alcoholic… Oh, no she wasn’t – but she was a really strange character, a deaf mute.
Martin Milner w/ Karen Black on ADAM-12 and no she doesn't talk about this show we just love these pics |
But I did a pretty good Beer, I guess, everyone laughed a lot because I wore a lot of… Well I hallowed my cheeks out a lot I think with this brown kind of greasy stuff, and that’s how I started.
One more of a young Karen Black on Adam-12 episode Log 132-Producer circa 1968 |
I would go from singing and dancing and I had just come from ballet and acting and I got a lot of off-Broadway roles and at the same time I was always working. I stayed at a hotel picking up complaints and writing them down... Writing down complaints for insurance people for jewels… For people who had jewels stolen who would call and I’d write all about it. Thank Goodness I was quite literate because I could do this kind of work.
I would just get a little bit of money and live on almost nothing, and just kept going up for parts and I got a role in a Broadway show, playing a fifteen year old in a Broadway show called THE PLAY ROOM. And I was nominated for Best Actress for Drama Circle Critics Award. I was the lead in it…
Director and actor Dennis Hopper with Karen Black in EASY RIDER |
And then I meet Henry Jaglom, and Henry introduced me to… He knew Dennis, you know… And he knew Jack and… I don’t know, somehow that whole group of people. And Dennis Hopper and I improvised… he was very brilliant… and he put me in EASY RIDER. And then I auditioned just like any other actor for FIVE EASY PIECES and, there you go.
Perhaps Karen Black's greatest performance w/ Jack Nicholson in FIVE EASY PIECES |
The famous "chicken between your knees" scene |
It’d be hard to explain her state of consciousness. She’s very open. She’s very receptive. She does not think. She’s completely not critical. She has no critical mentality. She doesn’t evaluate things that she sees out of her eyes, she just feels them. Or she’s very sensual or sexual and, that’s how she is – in that sense she has a lot of life-force and so-forth and something like that. And Bob Rafelson said, “I think you’re too smart to play this part.” And I said, “Well when you say action I’ll just stop thinking."
William Atherton with a 1930's Karen Black in THE DAY OF THE LOCUST |
Karen Black, who died last week, transformed herself into this role, which wouldn't seem that much of a stretch since, of course, Karen herself was an actress... But as we all know, she was a great actress, one of the best, in fact, while the very limited Faye merely wished to become one...
Karen Black argues with the interview from THE DAY OF THE LOCUST |
Uh… I, uh… [And for some strange reason, very perturbed, all I can think to say at this point is…] I guess that covers it... No, no, I just wondered. I’m going to answer. I intend to answer, but I just wondered if you’ve… It sounds like you’ve maybe read something I wrote about it or said about this before.
I can tell you – in all honesty – while I did listen to some of the TRILOGY OF TERROR commentary... I never, ever read anything about this... I’m not accusing you or anything, James, I just was curious ‘cause it was a very apt question.
Karen Black back on track for THE DAY OF THE LOCUST |
There’s a scene where I’m “Dancing on a Dime” with Donald Sutherland and the truth is, when we rehearsed it…
Karen Black with Donald Sutherland's Homer Simpson in THE DAY OF THE LOCUST |
So I said, “Waldo”… I love Waldo. I loved Waldo probably as much as I’d ever loved anybody – I just loved Waldo. And I said, “Waldo, you got us yelling at each other, don’t you remember?” “You know I don’t remember.” And he threw the script nicely… Gently threw the script on my sofa in my room and he said, “Write it.”
Karen Black in THE DAY OF THE LOCUST |
Now also I’ve noticed that women of that era, when they would pose they would, instead of putting their hands on their waists with their fingers in front and their thumbs behind the waist they would stand with their thumb in front of their waist and their fingers behind their waist – you had a certain way of standing and moving and we put… I put that into the characterization so it’s a good question and we did work on that a lot.
Dennis Hopper and Karen Black in the LSD scene from EASY RIDER |
So, during that scene did you… I was about to speak – I was just pausing in thought. Sounding like I stopped but I actually wasn’t, so, um… Yeah, she was worried about being pretty I think. Her hair came off. I was rolling around muttering to myself – whatever I improvised. It was a very long time ago actually, thirty-five, forty years.
Peter Fonda, Karen Black and Dennis Hopper trippin' in EASY RIDER |
Karen Black and son Hunter Carson (later in PARIS TEXAS) on Saturday Night Live |
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