LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Actress Lisa Blount, known best for her role in 1982’s “An Officer and a Gentleman,” died this week in her Arkansas home after battling chronic illness and complaining of back and neck pain, Little Rock police said Thursday.

Blount, who won an Academy Award in 2001 for producing the live-action short film “The Accountant,” was 53. Police were called to the home she shared with her husband, actor and director Ray McKinnon, on Wednesday after her mother found Blount dead in her bedroom.

Additional Photos

Lisa Blount and Ray McKinnon accept their Oscars for best live-action short film for "The Accountant" during the 74th annual Academy Awards, in Los Angeles in 2002. AP file

Blount’s mother told police that the actress had suffered for 17 years from a condition similar to multiple sclerosis, and that she’d complained recently of back and neck pain. McKinnon, who recently played a football coach in the hit film “The Blind Side,” was out of state at the time of Blount’s death.

No foul play is suspected, although authorities haven’t released a cause of death. Blount was found in her bed holding a cell phone in her left hand, according to Little Rock police. She last used the phone Monday afternoon, when she told a friend that she wasn’t feeling well, police said.

Blount was born in Fayetteville and grew up in Jacksonville before moving to Los Angeles. She gained fame — and a Golden Globe nomination — in “An Officer and a Gentleman,” where she played Debra Winger’s friend, Lynette Pomeroy. She also starred in 2004’s “Chrystal” with fellow Arkansan Billy Bob Thornton.

More recently, Blount appeared alongside Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and actor Johnny Depp at an August rally in Little Rock in support of the so-called West Memphis Three, the men convicted of murdering three 8-year-old boys in 1993. Blount sang an a cappella version of Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” to the crowd’s delight.

Related Stories