Zoe Lund was born Zoe Tamerlis to a Swedish mother and Romanian father on February 9, 1962 in New York City. She was an accomplished composer/musician and devout political activist at an early age. In 1981 at age 19, Lund gave a stunning performance as Thana, a mousy, mute garment worker and rape victim who violently strikes back against male oppression and exploitation of women in Abel Ferrara's outstanding distaff vigilante cult classic Ms .45 (1981). She was likewise excellent and impressive in a demanding dual role as both a murdered aspiring Southern Belle actress and the lookalike New York woman who was used to replace her in Larry Cohen's nifty thriller Special Effects (1984). From 1980 to 1985, Lund lived and worked with critic and filmmaker Edouard (Yves) De Laurot. She did a guest spot on an episode of Miami Vice (1984) and appeared as herself in the racy documentary Heavy Petting (1989). Lund co-wrote the script for and had a supporting role as a drug addict in Ferrara's crime drama Bad Lieutenant (1992). Lund was a staunch advocate of heroin drug use. In addition, she was a professional model in her 20s and a writer who penned various essays, short stories, novels and film scripts (one of these unfinished screenplays was about supermodel Gia Carangi; Lund appears as an interview subject in the documentary The Self-Destruction of Gia (2003) (in which she candidly discusses her own heroin use). In 1993, Lund wrote, directed and starred in the one and a half minute short feature Hot Ticket (1993). Zoe Lund was working on a short story anthology when she died of drug-related heart failure at the tragically young age of 37 in Paris, France on April 16, 1999.
