Luana Anders

Sullen, sensuous leading lady Luana Anders began making films in her teens, starring in such American-International cheapies as Reform School Girls. During this first stage of her career, Luana enjoyed a few above-average (albeit fleeting) assignments, including the role of walled-up Catherina Medina in Roger Corman's The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) and a similar "victim" characterization in Francis Ford Coppola's shakedown-cruise picture Dementia 13 (1962). Evidently, she made a lot of valuable professional contacts while toiling away in the "B" mills of the 1950s and 1960s. Cycle-flick refugees Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson both hired Luana to appear in their respective directorial efforts Easy Rider (1969) and Goin' South (1976). She also showed up in Nicholson's starring vehicles The Last Detail (1973, as the prostitute who "services" jail-bound Randy Quaid in a most unexpected and touching manner) and The Two Jakes (1990). In 1984, she was prominently featured in Movers and Shakers, a cinematic labor of love for actor/scripter Charles Grodin; nine years later she again appeared with Grodin, playing a Records Bureaucrat in Hearts and Souls (1993). In 1989, Luana Anders co-wrote the script for Limit Up (1989), a contemporary rehash of the "Faust" legend.