Laurene Landon

Laurene Landon
Landon in 2008
Born	Laurene Landon Coughlin (1957-03-17) March 17, 1957 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1979–present

Laurene Landon Coughlin (born March 17, 1957) is a Canadian film and television actress. She first began appearing in movies in the 1980s. She is best known for her roles in Maniac Cop (1988) and Maniac Cop 2 (1990), ...All the Marbles (1981), Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), I, the Jury (1982) and Hundra (1983).

Early life

Born in Toronto, Ontario, she attended California State University and began training in their police academy program, but decided that law enforcement was not for her when she came to the realization that she might someday have to use a gun. So she decided to try her hand at acting and began her career as an extra in films.

Career

Landon began acting in a bit part in 1979's Bitter Heritage, also released as Naked in My Grave. She was cast as a featured skater in Roller Boogie in that same year. She gained a small role in 1981's Full Moon High, her first of many collaborations with director Larry Cohen. She spent part of her early career as a model and in 1980 was a runner-up in the Miss Black Velvet pageant in Las Vegas. There, a casting director told her to go see another casting director in Los Angeles, regarding a feature film called ...All the Marbles (alternate title, The California Dolls). As she found modeling boring and was unable to sit still for hours at a time, she took his suggestion and landed the role of "Molly" in the film.

Landon starred as Mike Hammer's right-hand woman Velda in Larry Cohen and Richard T. Heffron's acclaimed 1982 Mickey Spillane movie adaptation I, the Jury. She appeared in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Hundra (1983), Maniac Cop (1988), and Maniac Cop 2 (1990). She returned to film acting as "Birdy" in the 2005 television movie Masters of Horror: Pick Me Up, followed by small or uncredited roles in the films Stand Up (2007) and Drive (2011). She appeared in Alien Vampz and Alien Vampz 2, as well as the comedy Strap-Off. In 2015, she played Detective Higgins in Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance, had a supporting role in the feature film Day Out of Days, and appeared in Sky. She had a starring role in the 2017 film, Syndicate Smashers.

Filmography and television

Year	Film/TV Show	Role	Other notes
1979	Bitter Heritage		aka Naked in My Grave
1979	Scoring	Marsha
1979	Roller Boogie	Featured skater
1981	...All the Marbles	Molly	reissued as The California Dolls
1981	Full Moon High	Blondie
1982	Airplane II: The Sequel	Testa, shuttle stewardess
1982	I, the Jury	Velda
1983	Hundra	Hundra
1984	Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold	Yellow Hair
1985	The Stuff	Cameo appearance in The Stuff commercial
1986	Armed Response	Deborah Silverstein
1986	America 3000	Vena
1987	It's Alive III: Island of the Alive	Sally
1988	Maniac Cop	Teresa Mallory
1989	Wicked Stepmother	Vanilla
1989	A Hollywood Story		Guest star
1990	The Ambulance	Patty
1990	Maniac Cop 2	Teresa Mallory
2005	Masters of Horror: Pick Me Up	Birdy
2007	Stand Up	Hippie Woman
2011	Drive	actress	uncredited
2013	Knife to a Gunfight	Barry
2014	Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films	Herself	Documentary on the story of The Cannon Group
2015	Hunter	Major Sintel
2015	Day Out of Days	Anne Malone
2015	Sky	Charlene
2015	Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance	Detective Higgins
2016	Enter the Samurai	Herself	Documentary on the creation of Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance
2017	Syndicate Smasher	Detective Carol Driscoll
2019	Nation's Fire	Myra
2020	Agramons Gate	Sharon Stann
2020	Sorrow's Way	Opal	pre-production
2022	Staycation	Tabitha Musgraves
2022	The Once and Future Smash	Herself

External links

• Laurene Landon at IMDb