Leslie Stefanson

Leslie Ann Stefanson was born on 10 May 1971, in Fargo, Cass County, North Dakota to Randy and Corinne Stefanson. She was raised in Moorhead, Clay County, Minnesota, where she grew up with her two siblings. She attended Barnard College in New York City, one of the Seven Sisters colleges, from where she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in English Literature in 1993. She spent much of her modeling and acting career in Los Angeles, but now splits her time between Los Angeles and New York City for her sculpting work. In January 2017, it was reported that she would soon move to a lavish renovated apartment in Lincoln Square.

Leslie was in a relationship with actor Ryan O'Neal in 1997. In 2002, she started dating actor James Spader, well-known for his role as Alan Shore in the TV series ‘The Practice’ and its spin-off ‘Boston Legal’ and for voicing the villain Ultron in the blockbuster superhero film ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’. The two became involved after they worked together in a couple of films like ‘The Stickup’ and ‘Alien Hunter’. Since then, they have been in a long term relationship and got engaged in 2008. The couple has a son, Nathaneal, born on August 31, 2008. She has two stepsons, Elijah and Sebastian, from Spader's previous marriage to Victoria Kheel.

Soon after completing her graduation with a degree in arts, Leslie Stefanson began her professional career as a model. During her modeling career, she became quite successful and was represented by the well-known modeling and talent agency Wilhelmina Models in Manhattan. However, in 1994, she tried her luck in acting with a short role in the film ‘The Cowboy Way’. In the following years, she continued to do small roles in a number of films, and eventually started to get major roles in the late 1990s, which culminated in a lead role in the 1999 film ‘The General's Daughter’. She has also worked on a number of television series, including portraying the role of Joan Bennett Kennedy in the 2001 miniseries Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot.

The 2003 made-for-television science fiction thriller film ‘Alien Hunter’ was the last film Leslie Stefanson worked on as an actor. After that, she quit acting to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an artist and is now known as a famous erotic sculptor. While she started working as a model and later began acting in films, she was always interested in arts. She eventually got enrolled at the Robert Cunningham studio in the early 2000s to study the human anatomy. With an extensive training over a four year period, she learnt to cast her own bronze sculptures. In 2004, she made her signature bronze piece, "I Myself Alone", which was later shown during her first exhibition. She further strengthened her drawing and sculpting skills by studying at the century-old art school, The Art Students League of New York, which boasts of an impressive alumni list comprising of artists like Thomas Eakins, Alexander Calder, Norman Rockwell, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock. She continued learning more about life drawing by attending The Art Students League in 2009. In 2011, she hosted her first show at Rourke Art Gallery Museum in Moorhead, Minnesota. She currently focuses mostly on female figures in terra-cotta and brass relief. She is infamous for capturing private erotic moments of her female subjects through her sculptures.