Born Susan Alexandra Weaver, she began using the name Sigourney Weaver in 1963, after a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (in Chapter 3, Jordan Baker tells Nick that her aunt is Mrs. Sigourney Howard). She attended the prestigious Ethel Walker School, a prep school in Simsbury, Connecticut, graduated from Stanford University, and studied Law at Harvard Law School, then drama at Yale School of Drama, where she appeared in original plays by friend and classmate Christopher Durang. She later appeared in the 1981 off-Broadway production of his comedy Beyond Therapy.
Although Weaver has played a number of critically acclaimed roles in movies like Gorillas in the Mist, The Ice Storm, Dave, and The Year of Living Dangerously, she is best known for her appearances as Warrant Officer/Lieutenant Ellen Ripley in the blockbuster "Alien" movie franchise. Her first appearance as Ripley was in Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien. She then reprised the role in all three sequels: Aliens, Alien³, and Alien: Resurrection. She was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for portraying Ripley in Aliens.
She also appeared in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II, as Dana Barrett. She played the role of the agoraphobic criminal psychologist Helen Hudson in the 1995 movie Copycat, and went on to become the most highly paid actress of the 1990s. In addition to her trademark role as Ripley, Weaver has recently concentrated on smaller, more challenging roles such as 1999's A Map of the World and 2006's Snowcake. Critics have also noted her consistent performances in comedic roles, such as in Jeffrey (1994) and Heartbreakers (2001), in which she starred with Jennifer Love Hewitt.
In 2003, Weaver was voted 20th in Channel 4's countdown of the 100 greatest movie stars of all time. She was one of only two women in the top 20 (the other was Audrey Hepburn).
In 2006, Weaver returned to Rwanda for the BBC special Gorillas Revisited.
Bryan Singer had originally wanted Weaver to play the lead villainess role of Emma Frost in X-Men: The Last Stand. But after Singer left the project to direct Superman Returns, the story changed considerably and the part of Emma Frost was dropped entirely from the script.
- Wiki
Write a Review
