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Susan Alexandra "Sigourney" Weaver
(born October 8, 1949) is an American actress. She is best known for her
roles as Warrant Officer (later Lieutenant) Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott's
Alien (1979), James Cameron's Aliens (1986) and in the rest of the Alien
film series, as Dana Barrett in the Ghostbusters films, as Jill Bryant in
The Year of Living Dangerously (1983), as Helen Hudson in Copycat (1995),
as Max Conners in Heartbreakers (2001), as Warden Walker in Holes (2003),
and as Dr. Grace Augustine in Avatar (2009), the highest-grossing film in
history.
Weaver is also a three-time Academy Award nominee for her performances in
Aliens (1986), Gorillas in the Mist (1988), and Working Girl (1988).
Weaver was born Susan Alexandra Weaver in New York City, the daughter of
Elizabeth Inglis (née Desiree Mary Lucy Hawkins; 1913–2007), an English
actress, and the NBC television executive Sylvester "Pat" Laflin Weaver
(1908–2002), an American of Scottish, Ulster Irish, and early New England
ancestry. Her uncle, Doodles Weaver, was a comedian and actor. She began
using the name "Sigourney Weaver" in 1963, aged fourteen, after a minor
character (Sigourney Howard) in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great
Gatsby.
Weaver attended the Ethel Walker School, a prep school in Simsbury,
Connecticut, where she was made fun of all the time for being a nerd and
for her height. She also attended The Chapin School. Sigourney was
reportedly 5′ 10½″ tall by the age of 14, but she only grew another inch
during her teens to her adult height of 5′ 11½″. Weaver graduated from
Stanford University, with a bachelor of arts degree in English in 1972,
but she had already begun her involvement in acting, by living in
Stanford's co-ed Beta Chi Community for the Performing Arts. Weaver earned
her Master of Fine Arts degree at the Yale University School of Drama in
1974, where one of her appearances was in the chorus in a production of
Stephen Sondheim's play, The Frogs, and another was as one of a mob of
Roman soldiers in another production. Weaver later acted in original plays
by her friend and classmate Christopher Durang. She later appeared in an
"Off Broadway" production of Durang's comedy Beyond Therapy in 1981, which
was directed by the up-and-coming director Jerry Zaks.
Although Weaver has played a number of critically acclaimed roles in
movies such as Annie Hall, 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. She first appeared as Ripley in Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien.
She reprised the role in three sequels, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien
Resurrection. She was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for
portraying Ripley in Aliens, one of the very few actresses so honored for
a role in a science fiction movie. She also starred in two films in 1988,
receiving Academy Award nominations for her roles as Katherine Parker in
Working Girl and as naturalist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist. She
lost out to Geena Davis and Jodie Foster respectively, although she
received Golden Globes for both roles.
Weaver also appeared in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II as Dana Barrett.
She played the role of agoraphobic criminal psychologist Helen Hudson in
the 1995 movie Copycat, and went on to become one of the most highly paid
actresses of the 1990s. In addition to her trademark role as Ripley,
Weaver has recently concentrated on smaller roles such as 1999's A Map of
the World and 2006's Snow Cake. She has also appeared in comedic roles,
such as Jeffrey (1994), Galaxy Quest (1999), and Heartbreakers (2001), in
which she starred with Jennifer Love Hewitt.
In 1997, Weaver won the BAFTA Award for her supporting role in Ang Lee's
The Ice Storm. In 2003, she 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). That year, she also played The
Warden in the movie Holes. In 2006, Weaver returned to Rwanda for the BBC
special Gorillas Revisited.
In 2009, Weaver starred as Mary Griffith in her first made-for-TV movie,
Prayers for Bobby, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award. She also
guest starred in the TV show Eli Stone in the fall of 2008.
2009 was also the year in which James Cameron's Avatar premiered with
Sigourney playing a major part as Dr. Grace Augustine, leader of the
Avatar program on the films fictional moon Pandora.
Weaver also has done voice work in television and film. She had a guest
role in the Futurama episode "Love and Rocket" in February 2002, playing
the female Planet Express Ship. In 2006, she was the narrator for the
American version of the Emmy Award-winning series Planet Earth. Also in
2006, Weaver narrated "A Matter of Degrees". A short film that plays daily
at The Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks (The Wild Center) in
Tupper Lake, New York. In 2008, Weaver was featured as the voice of the
ship's computer in the Pixar and Disney release, WALL•E. She also voiced a
narrating role in another computer-animated film, 2008's The Tale of
Despereaux, based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo. Weaver has also
expressed interest in starring in a fifth Alien film. Pre-production
details for the film are expected to start soon. Ivan Reitman has
confirmed that Weaver will reprise her role as Dana Barrett in the rumored
third Ghostbusters movie due for release in 2012.
Weaver has hosted two episodes of the long-running NBC sketch show
Saturday Night Live: once on the 12th season premiere in 1986, and again,
on a season 35 episode in January, 2010. Weaver has now broken Madeline
Kahn's record for longest gap between hosting appearances on SNL. Kahn had
an 18-year gap between her second appearance in 1977 and her third and
final appearance in 1995; Weaver, on the other hand, has a 24-year gap
between her first appearance in 1986 and her second and most recent
appearance in 2010.
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 eleven actors and actresses to have received two
Academy Award nominations in the same year. Weaver received a Best Actress
nomination for her role as gorilla conservationist Dian Fossey in Gorillas
in the Mist and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role as
Katharine Parker in Working Girl, opposite Harrison Ford and Melanie
Griffith. She won neither award but was awarded a Golden Globe for each
role.
Weaver was previously engaged to reporter Aaron Latham in 1967. She has
been married to the filmmaker Jim Simpson since October 1, 1984. They are
the parents of one daughter, Charlotte Simpson, who was born on April 13,
1990.
After making Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey, she became a
supporter of The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and is now the DFGFI's honorary
chairperson. Weaver is an environmentalist. 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 American version of the
BBC/Discovery Channel show Planet Earth. On April 8, 2008, she hosted the
annual gala of the Trickle Up Program, a non-profit organization focusing
on those in extreme poverty, mainly women and the disabled, in the Rainbow
Room.
Weaver has donated $5,800 to various Democratic politicians, including
Senators Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer. She supported President Barack
Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign. |
