Karen Black, who featured in cult films such as Easy Rider, Nashville and Five Easy Pieces, has died aged 74.

Hugely prolific, the Illinois-born actress appeared in more than 100 movies over a career spanning 40 years.

Karen Black died at a clinic in Los Angeles, three years after she was diagnosed with ampullary cancer.

Her breakthrough role, in 1969, was as a prostitute who takes drugs with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider.

Karen Black, who was raised in a Chicago suburb, almost always played troubled, neurotic characters.

Karen Black died at a clinic in Los Angeles, three years after she was diagnosed with ampullary cancer

Despite her impressive filmography, Karen Black had to turn to the public to help pay her healthcare costs.

Her online funding appeal raised more than $60,000, according to her husband, Stephen Eckelberry.

Karen Black earned an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe award for one of her most memorable roles – opposite Jack Nicholson – as a waitress who dates an upper-class dropout, in Five Easy Pieces.

She won a best supporting actress Golden Globe award for the role of mistress Myrtle Wilson in 1974’s The Great Gatsby.

The star went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award for playing a country singer in the ensemble cast of 1975 musical drama Nashville.

Karen Black also starred as a jewel thief in what turned out to be Alfred Hitchcock’s last movie, Family Plot, released in 1976.

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