Attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, for two years before moving to New York, where she studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actor's Studio and appeared in a number of Off-Broadway productions.
Considers Kris Kristofferson to be the most attractive male star she has ever worked with. She especially liked his voice.
Godmother of Dylan Purcell.
Guitarist Abby Normal featured a song titled "Scream Karen Black" on his solo project album Midnight Creature Feature Picture Show.
Has a cult glam-punk band named after her. Called The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Kembra Pfahler is the American performance artist and singer/rock musician who fronts it. She is known for the often sexual nature of her pieces.
Is the highest ranked actress on the "Oracle of Bacon" website (and 21st overall), which uses the IMDB database to determine which actors can be linked by the highest number of other actors in the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" trivia game.
Launched her career as a playwright in May 2007 with the opening of "Missouri Waltz" in Los Angeles; Black starred in the play as well. The piece is conceived as a play with music, rather than a musical.
Made her Broadway debut in 1965's "The Playroom", which ran less than a month. She received great reviews, however, and nominated for a Drama Circle Critics Award for Best Actress.
Measurements: 35-24-35 1/2 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
Mother of Hunter Carson and Celine Eckelberry (adopted).
She adopted a daughter, Celine Eckelberry, with her fourth husband Stephen. Celine was born in November of 1987.
She and her husband Eckelberry are active in the Church of Scientology.
The second daughter of William and Elsie Ziegler, her mother, who went by her maiden name of Elsie Reif (1908-1987), was 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.
Was married to younger actor Robert Burton, her second husband, at the time they filmed the cult TV-movie Trilogy of Terror (1975) (TV). Ms. Black initially turned the role down but eventually accepted when Robert was selected for a lead role in one of the three segments. Karen plays a college English teacher and he plays an obsessed student who stalks her. The couple was already divorced (after less than two years) by the time the TV-movie premiered in March of 1975.
Wrote the songs "Memphis" and "Rolling Stone" which she performed in character as country singer Connie White in the movie Nashville (1975). As a result she was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Series.