Karen Black, the prolific actress who appeared in more than 100 movies and was featured in such counterculture favourites as “Easy Rider,” “Five Easy Pieces” and “Nashville,” has died in Los Angeles.

Black’s husband, Stephen Eckelberry, says the actress died Thursday from complications from cancer. She was 74.

Known for her full lips and thick, wavy hair that seemed to change colour from film to film, Black often portrayed women who were quirky, troubled or threatened. Her breakthrough was as a prostitute who takes LSD with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in 1969’s “Easy Rider,” the hippie classic that helped get her the role of Rayette Dipesto, a waitress who dates — and is mistreated by — an upper-class dropout played by Jack Nicholson in 1970’s “Five Easy Pieces.”

via Karen Black, of Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces and Nashville fame, dies at age 74.

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