Sigourney Weaver
(First Lady Ellen Mitchell)

Sigourney Weaver is the daughter of former NBC president Sylvester 'Pat' Weaver and actress Elizabeth Inglis. She began using the name Sigourney (after a character mentioned in The Great Gatsby) in the early '60s. Weaver graduated from the Yale Drama School one year before Meryl Streep and gained experience on the New York stage before making her film debut in the Israeli-produced feature Madman (1976) and playing a bit part in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977). She played off-Broadway in Gemini and several other shows, and appeared on the soap opera Somerset. Her height (5'11") has sometimes kept her from being cast in certain roles.

Weaver gained almost overnight stardom as the tenacious heroine Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott's sci-fi thriller Alien (1979), and revived her character in Aliens (1986) and Alien3 (1992), in which Ripley "died" rather than give birth to one of the creatures. With the studios' 'sequel fever' running high now, Weaver agreed to undertake the role once more -- only this time as a clone of the original. Abetted by an android (Winona Ryder), Weaver resumes the battle against the Monster Queen and her spawn in Alien: Resurrection (1997), leaving the possibility open for yet another sequel. Weaver became co-producer of the series after Aliens.

After proving her serious dramatic credentials opposite Mel Gibson in the political drama The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Weaver went on to become one of Hollywood's prominent female stars of the '80s. She reached a different audience as a comic foil to Bill Murray in Ivan Reitman's comedy hit Ghostbusters (1984) and its less well received 1989 sequel. She has earned three Oscar® nominations: Best Actress for Aliens in 1986 and two in 1989 -- for Best Supporting Actress as a model of WASP snobbery opposite Melanie Griffith in Working Girl and for Best Actress as scientist and environmental activist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist.

Apart from her sci-fi success, the early '90s saw Weaver in more films that capitalized on her gutsy screen persona and status as an established star. She played a glorified cameo as Queen Isabella in Ridley Scott's disastrous 1492: The Conquest of Paradise (1992), and reunited with producer-director Ivan Reitman for her role as First Lady in the hit comedy Dave (1993). She was again in fine form as the vengeful victim of political torture in Roman Polanski's Death and the Maiden (1994) and as an agoraphobic criminal psychologist (a self-proclaimed "pinup girl for serial killers") opposite Holly Hunter in Copycat (1995). The same year, she cameoed as a New Age evangelist in the comedy Jeffrey (from Paul Rudnick's play). Recent work for Weaver includes The Heartbreakers and Company Man (both 2001).