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==Image and acting style== {{quotebox|align=right|width=24%|bgcolor=lavender|quote="I remember a friend of mine who said once, when you're raised in a congested space, you can get kind of intellectual. A little paper-loving, a little essayist. That's not very good for actors. Actors don't think. Thinking isn't good for acting; it's not what you do at all."|source=–Black on acting, 2008<ref name=reflects>{{cite web|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2008-09-19-0809171015-story.html|work=[[Chicago Tribune]]|title=Karen Black reflects on her life and career|last=Elder|first=Roger K.|date=September 19, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190304013814/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2008-09-19-0809171015-story.html|archive-date=March 4, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>}} Due to her work in various independent and mainstream films in the 1970s, Black is considered by film historians as a prominent figure of [[New Hollywood]],<ref name=guardian/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.avclub.com/r-i-p-karen-black-1798239956|work=[[The A.V. Club]]|title=R.I.P. Karen Black|last=Dyess-Nugent|first=Phil|date=August 8, 2013 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20190821220736/https://news.avclub.com/r-i-p-karen-black-1798239956|archive-date=August 21, 2019|access-date=August 21, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> and was described in 2004 by Howard Feinstein in the [[LGBT]] magazine ''[[The Advocate (LGBT magazine)|The Advocate]]'' as "Hollywood's off-center icon."<ref name=adv>{{cite web|work=[[The Advocate (LGBT magazine)|The Advocate]]|title=Bet on black: how Hollywood's off-center icon Karen Black wound up singing on the set of the new gay independent film Gypsy 83|last=Feinstein|first=Howard|date=May 11, 2004|url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Bet+on+black%3A+how+Hollywood%27s+off-center+icon+Karen+Black+wound+up+...-a0116288156|archive-url=https://archive.today/20190822084442/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Bet+on+black:+how+Hollywood's+off-center+icon+Karen+Black+wound+up+...-a0116288156|archive-date=August 22, 2019|access-date=August 22, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> She was prolific throughout her career, sometimes appearing in as many as seven films a year,<ref name=or/> and favored working in independent films: "That's my world—independent features," she stated in 2007. "That's how I started. That's what I like. It's playful and comfortable and not stressful, and it's an individual's way of creating. You're not in the studio system imitating other people and yourself. I'm having a good life."<ref name=or/> [[File:Karen Black 2010.jpg|thumb|upright=.9|left|Black in 2010]] In her later life, Black spoke unfavorably of the formal [[acting coach|study of acting]], and commented that she found her training both in the university (under [[Alvina Krause]]) and at the [[Actors Studio]] unhelpful and oppressive.{{sfn|Segrave|Martin|1990|p=85}}<ref name=simon/> Also a writer, Black likened her acting process to that of writing screenplays or other literature: "Everything that occurs in this zone is imagination-based. In that sense you mock up a life, and then you become the effect of what you've mocked up, so it's [[causality|cause and effect]]. So the more you can mock it up so that it seems real to you, the more you can react to the effect. That's what acting is, and that's what writing involves for me, too. That's the simplicity of it. It sounds simple, because it is."<ref name=simon/> Black considered herself a [[character actor|character actress]].{{sfn|Segrave|Martin|1990|p=89}} Throughout her career, Black was noted for her distinctive eyes, which gave her a slightly "[[cross-eyed]]" appearance,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Wood |first1=Gaby |title=Karen Black: The face of the counterculture |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/10233540/Karen-Black-The-face-of-the-counterculture.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/10233540/Karen-Black-The-face-of-the-counterculture.html |archive-date=January 12, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |work=[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]] |date=August 9, 2013}}{{cbignore}}</ref> although she stated in a 1982 interview that she had not been clinically diagnosed as such.<ref name="Sharbutt">{{cite news |last1=Sharbutt |first1=Jay |title=Karen Black: Hollywood actress returns to tackle Broadway |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22759802/ |work=[[The Anniston Star]] |date=February 14, 1982 |location=Anniston, Alabama |page=10D|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> One reviewer once described her as a "lopsided caricature of a pretty face."{{sfn|Segrave|Martin|1990|p=85}} For much of her career, Black was [[typecasting (acting)|typecast]] as an unglamorous or lowly woman of limited intelligence.{{sfn|Segrave|Martin|1990|p=85}} Beginning in the 1990s, Black began garnering a cult following for her appearances in horror films, though she clarified in 2008 that she had acted only in "about 14" out of her wide-ranging filmography.<ref name=reflects/> "When I did ''[[Trilogy of Terror]]'', with that [demon] doll, I filled the role very well," she recalled. "It was very real to people, and they just fell in love with it. And that got to be incredibly popular. With my last name being Black ... so it got to be kind of an unconscious thing, [my association with horror movies]. But I'm not interested in blood."<ref name=reflects/>
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