Today's director for our Female Filmmakers series is an indie filmmaker who basically hit it and quit it when it came to the industry. She only made one film, but the film she made had a huge impact on 90s indie films as well as the skindustry at large because it had one skintastic nude scene that proved that this director had an eye for sexiness. We are talking about Stefani Ames.
Not a lot is known about Stefani Ames, but she has always been interested in art. She studied photography at the Pratt Institute where she got her BFA in photography. She took her interest in capturing the world around her and went to New York University for her MFA in film. It was there that she really experimented with what she could capture visually.
She co-wrote A Gun, A Car, A Blonde in 1997 and then directed and produced it. This film follows a man named Richard who lost a lot of things in his life due to his battle with cancer. From the use of his back to his one true love, he feels like a shell of a man in his sick body. He seeks "object therapy" to project himself into an alternative reality where he doesn't have these pains. There, in his other reality, he becomes a private investigator named Rick Stone who acts tough and loves big. This exciting other life helps him survive in this one: but which life would he rather live?
It is a fascinating film with huge odes to film noir and it comes miles ahead of any kind of virtual reality films that we have a plethora of today.
John Ritter and Billy Bob Thornton star in the movie, but the real scene stealer is the woman who shows up nude in a single black-and-white scene that is the most mamorable one in the movie. Andrea Thompson is our sexy blonde - our femme fatale - who proves that looks could kill with her white bikini. But that's not all!
She also goes totally nude and showcases her cans as well as her trimmed pubic region. This blonde babe makes out with our leading man while naked and makes all of his dreams come true (and cum I'm sure he does!).
So what happened to Stefani Ames? Sadly, this was her one and only movie, but that doesn't mean she turned her back on movies completely. She married a fellow indie film guy named Tom Epperson who worked as a screenwriter in the 90s and early 2000s. He even wrote A Gun, A Car, A Blonde among other titles such as Don't Look Back, Camouflage, and The Gift.
The author and his former filmmaking wife now live a peaceful life in Santa Fe away from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood. Stefani enjoys working as an artist and has turned her attention toward sculpture-making. She even has a studio in Culver City and founded the Teale Street Sculpture Studio. I hope she is sculpting nude bodies because she was fantastic at capturing them on celluloid!
