Ami Cusack

Name: Ami Cusack
Birth Name: Ami Cusack
Sex: Female
Nationality: American
Birth Date: January 25, 1973
Birth Place: Golden, Colorado
Occupation: Model, Barista (coffee server) and
Education: Golden High School; Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Denver
Relationship: Dating Chrissy, whom she's been with for three years
Father: Richard Cusack (top gun pilot)
Mother: Virginia Cusack (former substitute English teacher)
Sister: None
Brother: Younger brother, Kyle, was killed in 1996 by a drunk driver
Claim to fame: Best known as the 31-year old barista and model from Lakewood, Colorado in Survivor: Vanuatu - Islands of Fire (2004)
Facts: Ami Cusack started her dancing at a club called Diamond Palace; she was the 13th survivor to be ousted from Survivor: Vanuatu - Islands of Fire; worked as a swimsuit model for Venus Swimwear and was featured in the 1996 issue of Playboy magazine in a pictorial entitled 'The Girls of Venus Swimwear.'

Filmography:

• Survivor: Vanuatu - Islands of Fire (2004)


Biography

Ami Cusack, a barista and model from Lakewood, Colorado, gained popularity for being one of the first two openly lesbian contestants in CBS network’s reality TV series Survivor: Vanuatu - Islands of Fire.
Ami was born on January 25, 1973 and raised in Golden, Colorado. She is the oldest daughter of Richard, a top gun pilot and explosive engineer and Virginia, a former substitute English teacher and homemaker. After graduating Golden High School, Cusack attended Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design (RMCAD) in Denver. While attending RMCAD, she secured a job with Experimental and Applied Sciences as charitable director (one of six employees), working with children and women. In 1998, the company was sold and Cusack decided to indulge her wanderlust. This Colorado native traveled around the world for four years and has been to Australia, Thailand, Tahiti, Iceland, Japan and Africa.
Upon returning to the US, she took a job at a coffee shop which she now regard as "the greatest job in the world." Ami looks forward to being a mom and taking care of her family. She has been dating her partner Chrissy for the past three years.
In 1996, Ami lost her 18-year-old younger brother, Kyle, to a drunk driver. Her mother Virginia now conducts motivation speaking to high school students about the consequences of drinking and driving.
Survivor: Vanuatu contestant Ami Cusack gave the press and fans of the series plenty to talk about. Not only is she one of the show's first "out" lesbians, she also appeared nude in the July 1996 issue of Playboy magazine with Jennie McCarthy. Ami Cusack worked as a swimsuit model for Venus Swimwear when she was featured in the nude Playboy magazine pictorial entitled 'The Girls of Venus Swimwear'. The ninth season Survivor castway may be a newcomer to the Ring of Fire but she’s definitely no stranger to the bikini. She was then called the “perfect Venus guy trap.”
Ami was a former dancer at a club called Diamond Palace and she was a pioneer of the Make a Wish Foundation in Denver. Ami enjoys partying, and used to date Bill Phillips. She used to model for Venus Swimwear and is also a former fitness trainer. She is a big fan of the Denver Broncos.
For the first time in the show’s history, Survivor featured not one but two openly gay women. Both Ami Cusack and Dr. Scout Cloud Lee's biographies even mention their relationships with women.
Although Survivor has featured a number of gay male players in seasons past (Richard Hatch, Brandon Quinton and John Carroll), viewers hadn’t seen any out lesbian castaways until the ninth season, which brought two gay women to a game suddenly rife with gender politics.

By splitting the 18 castaways into two tribes -- one male, one female – CBS producers set up the likelihood of segregated alliances, and at times both lesbians, Ami Cusack and Scout Cloud Lee, espoused plans for a victory that relied on women only.
Survivor: Vanuatu’s twelfth episode (the one where Ami Cusack was voted off) began with the Alinta tribe returning from Tribal Council after booting out Leann Slaby, the 35-year-old research assistant from Kansasville, Wisconsin, who had served as Ami's chief henchwoman. Ami felt powerless because of the loss of her ally and attacked several of her tribemates for the decision.
During the Reward Challenge, the remaining castaways had to go through a floating obstacle course through which each survivor would have to travel while individually retrieving three submerged flags. The winner of the challenge would be given a brand new Pontiac G-6. In addition, the second and third place finishers would also get to join the champion for an overnight excursion to a nearby resort.

Ami managed to grab an early lead and still held it as she was returning from her last flag retrieval, but stumbled into the water during her final return trip, allowing Eliza Orlins, who was right behind her, to finish first and win the new car. With Ami getting second place, the competition for the final slot came down to a neck-and-neck race between Chris and Julie. Chris pulled slightly ahead as they waded in to shore, capturing the final resort trip slot and leaving Julie to face a lonely night back at camp with Scout and Twila.
The Immunity Challenge that time was determined via a three-dimensional version of shuffleboard based on a map of the Vanuatu islands. The castaway to target the most of their discs on land masses would win immunity. With Ami remaining tied for the lead for most of the competition, it began to look as though she might once again escape the wrath of those she'd previously oppressed, but Chris Daugherty scored another point during the game's fifth and final round, winning individual immunity.
At the evening's Tribal Council, Eliza stuck to her new alliance despite her personal dislike and distrust of Scout and Twila and friendliness with Ami and Julie, resulting in Cusack’s ouster from the game via a 4-2 vote. Dubbed "the queen" of the women's alliance in Survivor: Vanuatu, Ami Cusack was finally dethroned when she became the thirteenth person voted off the show.

Ami then joined previous bootees Leann Slaby, James Chad Crittenden, and Lea "Sarge" Masters as the fourth member of the seven-person jury that eventually decided who should win Survivor: Vanuatu's million dollar prize.
She talked with The Advocate about her Survivor experience and confessed that she'd never seen Survivor before in her life. For three years she did not own a television, which is why she had never seen the show before. She originally tried out for another CBS reality series The Amazing Race with her girlfriend Chrissy, but they did not make it. When the producers asked her if she wanted to do Survivor, she replied yes and that was how she ended up in the show.