Karen Black, a versatile actress whose name became virtually synonymous with films that reflected and helped define America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including “Five Easy Pieces,” died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 74.

A family spokesperon has confirmed her death.

Diagnosed with ampullary cancer in 2010, Black had sought help from the public earlier this year to cover the cost of her medical treatment. An appeal by her husband, Stephen Eckelberry, on a crowd-sourcing website raised more than $60,000.

Black was born in suburban Park Ridge and went to Northwestern University for two years. She then moved to New York where she first appeared in several off-Broadway productions.

Among her most famous movie roles was the pregnant girlfriend of Jack Nicholson's character in 'Five Easy Pieces,' for which she would receive an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

In the film, released in 1970, Black plays Rayette Dipesto, a country music-obsessed waitress who becomes pregnant and is then abandoned by Nicholson's character, Robert Eroica Dupea.

'I'll go out with you, or I'll stay in with you, or I'll do anything that you'd like for me to do if you would tell me that you love me,' she says, curled up beside Dupea in an early scene.

With compelling, close-set eyes that gave her a distinctive appearance, Black built.