SIGOURNEY WEAVER

'Sigourney Weaver' (born 'Susan Alexandra Weaver' on October 8, 1949 in New York City) is an Oscar-nominated American actress. (She may have other names: she once told friends at Stanford that she had several names, two of which were "Susan".)

Contents

Early life

Film career

Dual nominations

Personal life

Popular culture

Filmography

See also

References

External links

Early life

Weaver is the daughter of late NBC television executive Pat Weaver and Desirée Hawkins Ingles, a British actress. Her uncle, Doodles Weaver, was a comedian and actor.
She began using the name 'Sigourney Weaver' in 1963, after a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's ''The Great Gatsby'' (in Chapter 3, golfer Jordan Baker tells Nick that her telephone number is listed under her aunt, Mrs. Sigourney Howard, who never appears in the book or movie). 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''.

Film career

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 reprised the role in two sequels, ''Aliens'' and ''Alien³''. She also played Ripley 8 (a clone of the original Ripley) in ''. She was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for portraying Ripley in ''Aliens''. Ripley was a breakthrough role: the first female action hero. Although Ripley is tender and nurturing with a cat or a child, she is tough and aggressive with adult humans and alien monsters, and ruthless enough to blow up her own ship or a planetary colony; in the third film, she destroys herself to prevent the xenomorph species from spreading.
Weaver 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 originally wanted Weaver to play the lead villainess role of Emma Frost in ''. 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.

Dual nominations

In addition to her Academy Award nomination for ''Aliens'', Weaver has received two other nominations in her career, both in 1988. This makes Weaver one of only ten actors and actresses to have received two nominations in the same year. Weaver received a Best Actress nomination for her role as gorilla conservationist Dian Fossey in '' and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role as Katharine Parker in ''Working Girl'' opposite Harrison Ford and Melanie Griffith. She did not win either nomination, but was awarded a Golden Globe for each role.

Personal life

Weaver married theater director Jim Simpson (The Flea Theater) in 1984. They have one child, Charlotte Simpson, who was born in 1990.
After making ''Gorillas in the Mist'', she became a supporter of The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and is now the DFGFI's honorary chairperson.^[1]
Weaver is an environmentalist. ^[2]
In October 2006 she drew international attention through a news conference at the start of a United Nations General Assembly policy deliberation. She outlined the widespread threat to ocean habitats posed by deep-sea trawling, an industrial method for harvesting fish. She also narrated the Discovery Channel show ''Planet Earth'', which focuses on the wonders of our world.^{[3] [4]}
Weaver is notable for her stature, standing 6' (1.83 m) tall. She is also notable for her wardrobe: She appears at many awards shows, wearing dresses by famous designers. At one time in the 1990s, two magazines appointed her Best Dressed and Worst Dressed, respectively.

Popular culture

The Italian lesbian science-fiction comics character Legs Weaver is inspired by Sigourney Weaver's role in ''Alien''.
In 2007, Weaver reprised her role of Ellen Ripley in a commercial for DirecTV. In the commercial, Weaver, in the power loader vehicle from the movie ''Aliens'', is battling the queen xenomorph while explaining to watchers how DirecTV is a better deal than cable.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1977	''Annie Hall''	Alvy's Date Outside Theater
1979	''Alien''	Ellen Ripley
1981	''Eyewitness''	Tony Sokolow
1982	''The Year of Living Dangerously''	Jilly Bryant
1984	''Ghostbusters''	Dana Barrett
1985	''Une femme ou deux''	Jessica Fitzgerald
1986	''Half Moon Street''	Dr. Lauren Slaughter
	''Aliens''	Ellen Ripley
1988	''Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey''	Dian Fossey
	''Working Girl''	Katharine Parker
1989	''Ghostbusters II''	Dana Barrett
1992	''Alien³''	Ellen Ripley
	''	Queen Isabella
1993	''Dave''	Ellen Mitchell
1995	''Copycat''	Helen Hudson
	''Jeffrey''	Debra Moorhouse
1994	''Death and the Maiden''	Paulina Escobar
1997	''The Ice Storm''	Janey Carver
	''	Claudia Hoffman
	''	Ellen Ripley clone
1999	''A Map of the World''	Alice Goodwin
	''Galaxy Quest''	Gwen DeMarco/Lieutenant Tawny Madison
2001	''Heartbreakers''	Max Conners/Angela
2002	''Tadpole''	Eve Grubman
2003	''Holes''	Warden Walker
2004	''Imaginary Heroes''	Sandy Travis
	''The Village''	Alice Hunt
2006
	''Snow Cake''	Linda Freeman
	''The TV Set''	Lenny
	''Infamous''	Babe Paley
2007
	''Happily N'Ever After''	Frieda	Voice only
	''Planet Earth''	Narrator	Narration only (Discovery Channel Version)
	''The Girl In The Park	Julia Sandburg	Completed; premiere at the Toronto Festival 2007
2008
	''Gypsy and Me''	Gypsy Rose Lee	TV; In production; executive producer
	''Vantage Point''	Rex	Completed
	''Baby Mama''	Chaffee Bicknell	Filming
	''The Tale of Despereaux''	The narrator	In production; voice only
2009	''Avatar''	Grace	Filming

See also

★ List of famous tall women

References

1. http://www.gorillafund.org/dian_fossey/
2. http://chge.med.harvard.edu/events/#NYC_Dinner
3. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03201755.htm
4. http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=38361&newsdate=04-Oct-2006

External links

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★ AskMen.com information

★ BBC News article on Sigourney Weaver