Whether it was work, marriage, or family, I've always been a late bloomer.
                                                                          -- Sigourney Weaver 

Born in 1949 in New York by former NBC president Sylvester (Pat) and former actress Desiree (Liz) Weaver (a.k.a Elizabeth Inglis), she was named Susan Alexander Weaver, though her father wanted to call her Flavia, because of his intense interest in Roman history. Her brother, though, was named Trajan after the Roman emperor.

In a family with unusual names it was natural for her to change her name to something more fitting to the family standard, and after reading The Great Gatsby, she chose the name of one of the minor characters, and at the age of 14, became known as Sigourney Weaver.

The whole family seems to have close ties to showbusiness, the dad president of NBC TV, her mom an actress, and her uncle Winstead Sheffield Weaver (Doodles Weaver) was also an actor and member of the Spike Jones' Troup, and remembered from the Professor Feitlebaum character.

She completed an university education at Stanford and Yale Universities, before she started her career on the screen, where she had her breakthrough in Alien with the role as Lt. Ellen Ripley, the astronaut who not only had to face evil, man-eating aliens but also face up to the stupidity of the mining corporation, that wants a new military weapon! Later movies only showed, that she was an actress that mastered most genres; from a gutsy, tough lady as in the Alien Quatrology and Gorillas in the Mist, through a sexy seductress in Ghostbusters, to a psychotic nervous wreck in Copycat.

While portraying Dian Fossey in the motion picture Gorillas in the Mist, Ms. Weaver was so moved by her experiences with the gorillas while filming that she became a supporter of the DFGF (Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund). Now Sigourney is DFGF's honorary to the board of trustees.

But even before she started her career on the big screen, she was honing her skills as an actress doing theater work almost five years before debuting in the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall in 1977. Her theater debut was in 1973 in the play Watergate Classics. She's also an alumni of The Yale School of Drama, in company with stars like Paul Newman, Stacy Keach, Charles Dutton, and Meryl Streep to name a few.

Though perhaps best known to the general audience for her perfomances in the Alien Quatrology. The role as Lt. Ellen Ripley was originally planned for Veronica Cartwright, but the producers chose Sigourney Weaver instead.

Another stunning fact is her salary rise! In 1977 she got $50 for her six seconds appearance in Annie Hall, in 1997 she got $11 million for Alien Resurrection, a pay rise of 220,000% in just 20 years, not bad -- huh?

Awards

[Golden Globe Awards & Nominations]

1998 - Nominated for Best Supporting Actress in <The Ice Storm>.

1989 - Winner of Best Supporting Actress in <Working Girl>.

1989 - Winner of Best Actress (Drama) in <Gorillas in the Mist>.

1987 - Nominated for Best Actress (Drama) in <Aliens>.

[Academy Award Nominations]

1987 - Nominated for best actress in <Aliens>.

1989 - Nominated for best actress in <Gorillas in the Mist>.

1989 - Nominated for best supporting actress in <Working Girl>.


[Screen Actors Guild Award Nominations]

1998 - Nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a TV Movie
          or Miniseries for <Snow White : A Tale of Terror -1999>.

[Other Awards, Nominations and Honors]

1998 - Ranked 6^th on Blackwell's 38^th Annual Worst Dressed Women List
         (resembles a shrink-wrapped mummy - in a peep-show revue).

1998 - Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline have been named Man and Woman
          of the Year by Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals, for their performances
          in The Ice Storm.

1997 - Ranked 71^st in the U.K. magazine Empire's "The Top 100 Movie Stars
          of All Time".

1997 - Ranked 13^th of Sci-Fi's Sexy 50 by Femme Fatales magazine.

1987 - Winner of The Saturn Award as Best Actress in Aliens at Academy of
          Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Films, U.S.A.