LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas native and Oscar winner Lisa Blount, 53, was found dead in her Little Rock home Wednesday.
Pulaski County Coroner Garland Camper said Blount likely died Monday in her home, on North Woodrow Street in the Hillcrest neighborhood, and that his investigators found no evidence of foul play.
Blount’s husband - actor, screenwriter, director and producer Ray McKinnon - was in Atlanta this week and was expected to return to Little Rock late Wednesday.
Blount’s mother discovered her body when she went to check on her daughter about 2 p.m., Camper said. She called 911.
The family has request-ed a private autopsy, Camper said. Results of the examination won’t be released, but Camper will certify Blount’s official cause of death for the public record.
An autopsy by the state medical examiner’s office isn’t necessary, Camper said, because there is no evidence of a crime.
Blount and McKinnon moved to Little Rock in 2005. The couple, along with Walton Goggins, made The Accountant,which won the 2001 Academy Award for Live Action Short Film.
Most recently, McKinnon produced and starred in That Evening Sun, and heplayed a coach in last year’s box-office hit The Blind Side.
Blount, who was born in Fayetteville and grew up in Jacksonville, was inducted last month into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame.
At the event, Blount told of meeting Louis Gossett Jr. on the set of An Officer and a Gentleman, in which she played the best friend of star Debra Winger’s character.
“He never called me Lisa. He just called me Arkansas, and I really liked that,” she said. “If you can make a life here [in Arkansas], don’t go anywhere else. I’ve been out there.”
Tim Jackson with Little Rock’s Category One Entertainment said Wednesday evening that Blount “loved Arkansas and Arkansas loved her. It’s very telling that she has good friends in Little Rock she’s known for 30 and 40 years.”
Jackson said Blount was excited about a pilot she was shooting in Nashville for theFX Network.
Just last week, Blount and Jackson sat in a car and listened to songs she’d recorded for the show.
“She was the quintessential strong Southern woman,” he said. “She had a real sense of place and was very down-toearth. She was such a strong artist.”
Blount began her film career two years after she graduated from Jacksonville High School with a role in the 1977 movie about James Dean, September 30, 1955.
She returned to her Arkansas roots later in her career and was known to be an advocate for the state and its film industry. In 2004, she produced and acted in Chrystal with Billy Bob Thornton, another native Arkansan.
News of Blount’s death rippled through Little Rock’s art and film community Wednesday afternoon.
“She and her husband, Ray, have been part of the artistic community for years now,” Little Rock Film Commissioner Chris Crane said shortly after hearing the news. “She was a local girl. It’s very tragic. She was way too young. We’re all going to be grieving for quite some days now.” Information for this article was contributed by Philip Martin of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 10/28/2010