Karen Black

A versatile and prolific actress born July 1, 1939, in Park Ridge, Ill., Karen Black studied her craft at the Actors Studio before making her critically acclaimed Broadway debut in "The Playroom" (1965). The next year, she landed her first major film role in director Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now.

Black's star-making turn came three years later in the counterculture classic Easy Rider. That part led to her casting as a clingy small-town waitress in 1970's Five Easy Pieces, which netted Black an Oscar nod and a Golden Globe win. By the middle of the decade, she hit her stride with plum roles in The Great Gatsby (1974), Nashville (1975) and Burnt Offerings (1976)

When Black's Hollywood career waned in the early 1980s, she turned to indie films, specializing in horror movies that soon earned her a cult following. A dual role in the surreal thriller Firecracker (2005) is among the highlights of her later work. Black died Aug. 8, 2013.

Easy Rider

1969 R

With cash from a cocaine sale, two freewheeling hippies hop on their motorcycles and ride across America toward New Orleans, clashing with rednecks and picking up a boozy lawyer along the way in this counterculture classic.