Lisa Blount on AllMovie

Born in Arkansas, actress Lisa Blount made her feature film debut at the age of 17 as a teenage girl obsessed with James Dean in 9/30/55, a film shot on-location in Arkansas. After moving to Hollywood, she appeared in the 1979 re-edit of the drama The Swap (aka, Sam's Song) starring Robert De Niro. Her breakthrough role came a few years later as Debra Winger's best friend Lynette Pomeroy in the romantic drama An Officer and a Gentleman. Both Blount and co-star David Keith were nominated for Best New Star at the 1983 Golden Globes. A few leading roles followed, including the war drama Cease Fire opposite Don Johnson. For the rest of the '80s, she had leading roles in several low-budget horror films, starting with the thriller Dead and Buried. On television, Blount starred in the short-lived family dramas Sons and Daughters and Profit, as well as several made-for-TV movies. In 1996, she made a brief comeback as Purlene Dupree, Catherine Keener's sister in Tom DiCillo's Box of Moonlight. She also reunited with David Keith to star in Matthew Modine's 1999 crime drama If...Dog...Rabbit, released on home video as One Last Score. Not long after, Blount married actor/director Ray McKinnon and started making films projects with him. Their short film The Accountant won Best Live Action Short Film at the 2001 Academy Awards. They worked together again on Chrystal, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in the dramatic competition. Blount, who suffered from a condition similar to multiple sclerosis, died of related complications in October 2010, at the age of 53.