Joan Severance

Joan Marie Severance (born December 23, 1958) is an American actress and former fashion model.

Early life Severance was born in Houston, Texas.

Severance attended Westbury High School, and at age 15, started modeling to make money for college. Although she hoped to become a veterinarian, she could not afford the cost of tuition. After appearing in the "Miss Houston" beauty contest, she was discovered by Alan Martin, a local photographer in Houston, who introduced her to John Casablancas. Casablancas signed her up with the Elite Model Management and sent her on assignment to Paris. During this time, she met her future husband, model Eric Milan. Upon her return to the United States, Severance became one of America's top models, filming over 40 commercials, and earning $7,500 per day.

Severance was also on the covers of the January 1990 and November 1992 issues of Playboy magazine, both featuring her in a nude pictorial. More recently, at age 52, she appeared in a six-page editorial along with an interview in the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Genlux magazine.

Acting In 1986, Severance began auditioning for acting bits at the urging of her friend Robin Leach.

Her most extensive role was a villainess for an eleven-episode story arc of the TV series Wiseguy; she played Susan Profitt, half of a brother/sister crime team (the other half was played by Kevin Spacey) to great acclaim. Their partnership was reprised in See No Evil, Hear No Evil. In the early 1990s, Severance appeared as Samantha "Sam" Dooley, the Martian Belle, in two training videos for Virtual World Entertainment alongside other actors such as Cheech Marin, "Weird Al" Yankovic, R. Lee Ermey, and Judge Reinhold.

Severance usually takes the "femme fatale" roles in low-budget horror and murder-mystery movies including Lake Consequence (1993), Criminal Passion (1994), and Payback (1995). She had leading roles in Roger Corman's superhero film Black Scorpion (1995) and its sequel Black Scorpion II (1997), and The Last Seduction II (1999); she also co-produced the latter two. From 1998 to 1999, Severance played Security Chief Camille Hunter on the Aaron Spelling-created television series Love Boat: The Next Wave on UPN.

In 2006, Severance appeared in MyNetworkTV telenovela Wicked Wicked Games. She was also in shows such as CSI: Miami and One Tree Hill. In 2013, she was in American Horror Story: Asylum. In 2014, she was on Celebrity Wife Swap with Leach.

Personal life Severance married fellow model Eric Milan in 1977. They separated amicably in 1984. According to Severance, they "just grew apart".

Filmography Film

Television