Actress Joan Severance's father was an IBM Systems Engineer and, as a child, spent her growing years traveling the world. Her family lived in the Middle East at one point and had to flee from Libya during the Six-Day War in 1967. Her family quickly moved back to the States and settled in Houston, Texas. Joan started modeling at 15 to earn money for college. Her aspiration to study veterinarian medicine was dashed when she couldn't afford the tuition money. Entering the "Miss Houston" beauty contest instead, she was spotted and eventually hired by the Elite Modeling Agency, sent to Paris, and the course of her life changed forever. Joan spent four months in Paris and married Elite model Eric Milan who then was 25. Joan and Eric subsequently separated and her divorce was final in 1984 after seven years. In the late 1980s, she managed to parlay her success at modeling into an acting career. An independent, uninhibited type, her physical assets helped move Joan forward playing a number of femme fatales in low-budget murder mysteries and horrors all in various states of undress. Playing bad girls has served Joan well over the years, her super-vixens and super-heroines, particularly as Roger Corman's Black Scorpion (1995) (TV), a particular boost. Occasionally, she has co-produced her film efforts such as Matter of Trust (1997) and Black Scorpion II: Aftershock (1997). As a change of pace, she was cast in Aaron Spelling's revival series "Love Boat: The Next Wave, The" (1998) in the late 1990s.
Joan Severance was born and raised in Houston, Texas. At the age of 18 and at the sole urging of John Casablancas of Elite models, she went to Paris, France to begin a modeling career that would turn out to be well worth the price of the ticket Casablancas sent her. Within months she graced the covers of all the international magazines and was doing shows for all the top designers. She landed campaigns for Chanel and Versace. After eight months she moved to NYC to pursue the US market and was quick to land several national commercials for Windsong perfume, Breck shampoo, Clairol, English Leather, L'oreal, Revlon and Maybeline. After several dozen commercials and a very high profile editorial career, she quit the modeling industry to head to Hollywood. Within weeks, she had a manager, an agent and was studying with several different acting coaches. It was six months later that she landed her first role on a major television series for CBS called "Wiseguy" (1987),starring Ken Wahl and Kevin Spacey. It was only a matter of time that director Arthur Hiller cast her in See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor and her costar from Wiseguy, Kevin Spacey. That same year she did Bird on a Wire (1990) with Mel Gibson (I) and Goldie Hawn and No Holds Barred (1989) with Hulk Hogan. Later starring in several films, including Zalman King's Lake Consequence (1993) (TV) with Billy Zane, Criminal Passion (1994) with Anthony John Denison and Payback (1995) with C. Thomas Howell. She has appeared in over fifteen films. She spent 1998 working with Robert Urich on Aaron Spelling's "Love Boat: The Next Wave, The" (1998) and with Ann-Margret on Life of the Party: The Pamela Harriman Story (1998) (TV) for Lifetime. Films to follow were Cause of Death (2000) with Patrick Bergin and Taylor (2005) with Jack Scalia in 2005. Since 2004, she has been in many popular TV shows like "One Tree Hill" (2003) and "CSI: Miami" (2002) as well as Hallmark's Mystery Woman (2003) (TV). She is currently working on a series for MyNetworkTV called "Wicked Wicked Games" (2006) with 'Tatum ONeal. Her hobbies include interior design, garden and fashion design, cooking,reading, entertaining, writing and anything to do with horses. Science, health and the unknown spark her interests. She has a gourmet cooking degree from Roger Verge from The Moulin du Mougin in the South of France, owned and was the chef of a restaurant in upstate New York, owned a catering company in New York, and has taught commercial acting classes. Her current passion is purchasing houses and renovating them. Along with the multitude of interests she has taken the time to get involved with Scenes at canyonroadproductions.com where she writes, produces and directs scenes for up and coming actors who are looking to get professional tape on themselves. Ms. Severance has a Bachelors Degree in Natural Health and is obtaining her N.D. degree as a Doctor of Naturopathy. She is developing a television series, writing two books and developing a television talk show based on the alternative and holistic lifestyles. While not attending to all her career, interests or studies she spends time with her husband, Rom Gemar, and supports his cinematographer endeavors while they travel to Europe frequently and bask in the glorious food, countryside and people of Italy and France.
