Ziegler Family History & Genealogy

Karen Black Karen Black Five Easy Pieces Born Karen Blanche Ziegler July 1, 1939 Park Ridge, Illinois, U.S. Died August 8, 2013 (aged 74) Los Angeles, California, U.S. Cause of death Ampullary cancer Nationality American Alma mater Maine Township High School East Northwestern University Occupation Actress, screenwriter, singer, composer Years active 1960–2013 Spouse(s) Charles Black (m. 1960) Robert Burton (m. 1973–74) L. M. Kit Carson (m. 1975–83) Stephen Eckelberry (m. 1987–2013) Children 3, including Hunter Carson Relatives Gail Brown (sister) MAYBE LATER CLOSE Karen Blanche Black (née Ziegler; July 1, 1939 – August 8, 2013) was an American actress, screenwriter, singer and songwriter. A native of Illinois, Black studied acting in New York City and performed on Broadway before making her major film debut in Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now (1966). She followed this with roles in Easy Rider (1969), Five Easy Pieces (1970), and The Great Gatsby (1974), for the latter two of which she won Golden Globe awards for Best Supporting Actress; her performance in Five Easy Pieces also garnered her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.[1] In 1975, she appeared in Dan Curtis's cult horror films Trilogy of Terror and Burnt Offerings; Robert Altman's Nashville, and The Day of the Locust, which earned her a third Golden Globe nomination. Other roles include Airport 1975 (1974), Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976), Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), and Tobe Hooper's Invaders from Mars (1986). In the 1990s, Black starred in a variety of arthouse and horror films, as well as writing her own screenplays before appearing in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003), which cemented her status as a cult horror icon.[2] Black continued to star in low-profile films throughout the early 2000s, as well as working as a playwright before being diagnosed with ampullary cancer in 2010. She died of the disease in Los Angeles, in August 2013. Black's career spanned over fifty years, and includes nearly two hundred film credits. Early life Black was born as Karen Blanche Ziegler in Park Ridge, Illinois, in suburban Chicago, the daughter of Elsie Mary (née Reif), a writer of several prize-winning children's novels, and Norman Arthur Ziegler, an engineer and businessman. Her paternal grandfather was Arthur Charles Ziegler, a classical musician and first violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She had one sister, actress Gail Brown, and a brother. Black was of German, Bohemian (Czech) and Norwegian descent. She graduated from Maine Township High School East in 1957. After high school, Black enrolled at Northwestern University, where she majored in theatre arts. Career Early work: 1960–1970] Black made her Broadway debut in 1965's The Playroom, which received good reviews and for which she was nominated for a Drama Circle Critic Award for Best Actress. Her film debut was in The Prime Time (1960) and her first big role was in You're a Big Boy Now (1966), directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Beginning in 1967, she appeared in guest roles in several television series, including The F.B.I., Run for Your Life, The Big Valley, The Iron Horse, The Invaders, Mannix and Adam-12. Her feature film career expanded in 1969, playing the role of an acid-tripping prostitute opposite Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in the iconic counterculture movie Easy Rider. In 1970, Black appeared as Rayette, the waitress girlfriend of Jack Nicholson, in the film Five Easy Pieces, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and earned her her first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress-Motion Picture. She also won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film. Breakthrough and success in Hollywood: 1971–1985 Black in Ace Up My Sleeve, 1976 Black played an unfaithful wife, Myrtle Wilson, in the 1974 version of The Great Gatsby, a performance that earned her a second Golden Globe Award in the same category. In the same year she starred as Nancy Pryor, the stewardess who is forced to fly the plane, in the disaster film Airport 1975 (1974). In 1975, she played multiple roles in Dan Curtis's televised anthology film Trilogy of Terror. The segments, all written by suspense writer Richard Matheson, were named after the women involved in the plot — a plain college professor who seduces a student ("Julie"), a pair of sisters who squabble over their father's inheritance ("Millicent and Therese"), and the lonely recipient of a cursed Zuni fetish that comes to life and pursues her relentlessly ("Amelia"). Black received another Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress for her role as an aspiring actress in 1930s Hollywood in John Schlesinger's tragic drama The Day of the Locust (1975). She also starred as a country singer in Robert Altman's Nashville (also 1975) and as a kidnapper in what turned out to be Alfred Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot (1976). She also reunited with director Dan Curtis to star in the horror film Burnt Offerings (1976), with Oliver Reed and Bette Davis. She then played a dual role in a 1977 thriller, The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver. Other notable films from the 1970s include Born to Win (1971) with George Segal and Robert De Niro, Cisco Pike (1972) with Kris Kristofferson and Gene Hackman, Portnoy's Complaint (1972) with Richard Benjamin, The Pyx (1973) with Christopher Plummer, The Outfit (1973) with Robert Duvall, Rhinoceros (1974) with Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel, and Capricorn One (1978) with Elliott Gould. In 1980, Black starred in a made-for-TV movie Police Story: Confessions of a Lady Cop. In 1982, she gave a critically acclaimed performance in Robert Altman's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, where she starred alongside Cher and Sandy Dennis. From 1984 to 1985, she played the role of Sheila Sheinfeld in the NBC series E/R. Other television credits include Saturday Night Live, Murder, She Wrote, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Later work and playwrighting: 1986–2013 Black's later career emphasized numerous horror roles, beginning in Tobe Hooper's Invaders from Mars (1986), which she starred in with her son, Hunter Carson. As her later career progressed, Black gained a cult following, as alluded to by Family Guy television anchor Tom Tucker in his remark "Karen Black: what an obscure reference." in the episode Death Is a B**** (season 2, episode 6). Other horror roles included as a troubled single mother in Mirror, Mirror (1990), Children of the Night (1991), and as a paranoid mother in small-town Nebraska in Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996), alongside Naomi Watts. In 1997, Black played Lady Byron in the ground-breaking feminist science fiction feature Conceiving Ada (Dir. Lynn Hershmann Leeson), about a contemporary scientist who uses software to make contact with the Victorian pioneer of computer programming Ada Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron. In 2003, Black starred as Mother Firefly in the Rob Zombie horror movie House of 1000 Corpses. In March 2005, Black received the Best Actress Award at the Fantasporto International Film Festival in Porto, Portugal, for her work in the critically acclaimed Steve Balderson film Firecracker (2005), in which she plays two roles, Sandra and Eleanor. She and actor John Hurt were both presented with Career Achievement Awards as well. Black launched a career as a playwright in May 2007 with the opening of Missouri Waltz at the Blank Theater in Los Angeles; Black starred in the play as well. In April 2009, Black worked with director Steve Balderson for Stuck!, a homage to film noir women-in-prison dramas, which co-starred Mink Stole, Pleasant Gehman and Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's. Black also starred in John Landis' 2010 thriller, Some Guy Who Kills People,[9] as well as Aïda Ruilova's surrealist short film Meet the Eye (2009). Later that year, Black appeared on Cass McCombs' song "Dreams-Come-True-Girl" from the album Catacombs. The experimental hip-hop group Death Grips released a video on YouTube called "Bottomless Pit" in October 2015. The video shows footage of Black reciting lines from a film script written by the group's drummer/co-producer Zach Hill. The footage was shot in early 2013. Personal life Black in 2010. Black married four times: Charles Black, married in 1960. Robert Burton, an actor (who appeared alongside Black in Trilogy of Terror), married on April 18, 1973 and separated in October 1974. L. M. Kit Carson, an actor/screenwriter, married on July 4, 1975 and separated in 1980. They had a son, actor Hunter Carson. Stephen Eckelberry, from September 27, 1987. They adopted a daughter, Celine. Death After her final films were released in 2010, she was diagnosed with cancer and stopped making public appearances. She had a portion of her pancreas removed that year and endured two further operations. She was invited to attend the premiere of River Phoenix's last on-screen performance in the salvaged feature film Dark Blood, in which she had played a small part in the original early 1990s shoot. Black was unable to attend the event, held in the Netherlands in September 2012, due to her illness. On August 8, 2013, Black died in Los Angeles from cancer at age 74. Actress Juliette Lewis paid tribute, saying "Karen Black was my mentor and a second mother to me. She inspired everyone she came in contact with."

Mabel Freed (Landis) Ziegler of Souderton, Montgomery County, PA was born on March 22, 1901, and died at age 83 years old on May 7, 1984 in Souderton. Mabel Ziegler was buried at Hillside Cemetery in Souderton.

Phyllis May (Ziegler) Phagan was born on May 13, 1943 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania United States to Dorothy Martha Ziegler and Walter Franklin Ziegler, and has a sister Barbara Eileen Kelly. She married Donald Clarence Phagan on May 13, 1981 in Mableton, Cobb County, Georgia, and they were married until Donald's death on November 5, 2005 in Mableton. Phyllis Phagan has children Thomas Alan Phagan, Theodore Bryan Phagan, Gretchen Morgan Selby, Timothy Dale Phagan, and Frederick Leo Corcoran. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Phyllis May Phagan.

Dorothy Martha (Stirzel) Ziegler was born on August 27, 1911 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania United States. She was married to Walter Franklin Ziegler in 1937 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, and they were together until Walter's death on January 28, 1980 in Stafford Township, Ocean County, New Jersey. She had children Barbara Eileen Kelly and Phyllis May Phagan. Dorothy Ziegler died at age 85 years old on December 12, 1996 in Atlanta, Fulton County, GA, and was buried on December 19, 1996 at Oakland Cemetery in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Dorothy Martha Ziegler.

Walter Franklin Ziegler was born on September 23, 1905 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania United States, and died at age 74 years old on January 28, 1980 in Stafford Township, Ocean County, NJ. Walter Ziegler was buried on January 31, 1980 at Oakland Cemetery in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Walter Franklin Ziegler.

Barbara Eileen (Ziegler Elder) Kelly was born on October 6, 1940 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania United States, and died at age 69 years old on September 29, 2010 in Greenfield, Hancock County, IN. Barbara Kelly was buried at Cremated. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Barbara Eileen Kelly.

Donald Ziegler of New York, New York United States was born on February 18, 1939 in The Bronx, Bronx County, and died at age 58 years old on August 31, 1997 in New York. Donald Ziegler was buried at Calverton National Cemetery Section 17 Site 81 210 Princeton Boulevard - Rt 25, in Calverton.

Norman Ziegler of San Diego, San Diego County, California was born on January 20, 1909, and died at age 77 years old in January 1986.

Elsie M Ziegler of San Marcos, San Diego County, California was born on November 15, 1910, and died at age 97 years old on May 23, 2008.

Frank Ziegler of Ohio was born on February 4, 1899, and died at age 66 years old in March 1965.

Melissa Ann (Ziegler) Gisoni was born on June 13, 1968 in New York City, New York County, New York United States. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Melissa Ann Gisoni.

Tyler Allen Ziegler was born on June 25, 1995 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania United States to Curtis Howard Ziegler and Lorri Ann Ziegler, and has a brother Ryan David Ziegler. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Tyler Allen Ziegler.

Curtis Howard Ziegler was born on January 10, 1965 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania United States. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Curtis Howard Ziegler.

Ryan David Ziegler was born on May 14, 1991 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania United States. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Ryan David Ziegler.

Lorri Ann Ziegler was born on August 1, 1961 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania United States. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Lorri Ann Ziegler.

Mackenzie Frances Ziegler was born on June 4, 2004 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania United States. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Mackenzie Frances Ziegler.

Madison Nicole Ziegler was born on September 30, 2002 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania United States to Curtis Howard Ziegler and Melissa Ann Gisoni, and has a sister Mackenzie Frances Ziegler. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Madison Nicole Ziegler.

Sondra Joy (Maruna) Ziegler was born on June 9, 1954 in Chico, California United States. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Sondra Joy Maruna-Ziegler.

Carol B (Ziegler) Guaiana was born on December 25, 1933, and died at age 86 years old on June 7, 2020. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Carol (Ziegler).

Carol B (Ziegler) Guaiana was born on December 25, 1933, and died at age 86 years old on June 7, 2020. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Carol B (Ziegler).