Blount's career began at age 17 when, as a college student, she was cast by director James Bridges as a James Dean-obsessed Vampira-dressing girl in "9/30/55". She migrated to Hollywood a few years later and landed a small role in new footage in "Sam's Song/The Swap" (filmed in 1969; re-edited with newly filmed scenes and re-released in 1979), starring Robert De Niro. Blount went on to play a psychopath who poses as nurse to lure men to their death in "Dead and Buried" (1981), the first of her many horror pictures. In 1982, came "An Officer and a Gentleman". Although she earned a Golden Globe nomination for her work and was considered a potential Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actress, Blount was not among the final five. While one might expect her to move on to quality, high-budget prestige projects, she instead began to appear in a string of low-budget horror movies: "Radioactive Dreams" (1986), in which she was disguised as a man throughout much of the film; "Cut and Run" (also 1986), which found her locked with a Jim Jones-type coke dealer in the jungles of South America; and John Carpenter's "Prince of Darkness" (1987), in which she jumped through a mirror to save humankind from Satan. Outside the horror/action/suspense genres, Blount was Winona Ryder's mother and Dennis Quaid's youthful mother-in-law in the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic "Great Balls of Fire" (1989).
On TV, Blount has tried to hook onto a series with limited success. She was the younger second wife of the family patriarch in the short-lived "Sons and Daughters" (CBS, 1991). the show lasted only a few episodes. "Profit" was pulled after only four airings, but Blount's scenery-eating character was the fodder from which TV legends are born. She has also appeared a few TV-movies, starting with "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer: Murder Me, Murder You" (CBS, 1983), and as the victim in "Murder Between Friends" (NBC, 1994).
With the dawning of the 21st Century, a now dark-haired Blount moved into a different stage in her career. Married in 1998 to actor and filmmaker Ray McKinnon, she collaborated with her husband on the well-received short film "the accountant" (2001), which earned that year's Academy Award as Best Live Action Short Film.