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Linda Hamilton
She says:
"I get to play all this grief, all this loss, all this disaster and chaos.
It's hysterically funny."
Apart from playing Sandy Valpariso in three episodes of TV cop show Hill Street Blues (1984),
Linda Hamilton's first taste of stardom was playing stalker victim turned heroine, Sarah Conner, in
The Terminator (1985). This helped set a very high standard for action women in Hollywood
blockbusters, only later surpassed by Sigourney Weaver's
'Ripley' in Aliens (1986). Other tough girl roles soon
followed, such as Vicky in rural horror Children Of The Corn (1984) - an adaptation of Stephen
King's book; Elena Koslov in Sexpionage (aka: Secret Weapons, 1985), a drama about female
Russian spies; and Nina, the leader of a gang of car thieves in Black Moon Rising (1986).
After playing Amy Franklin, the surgeon who operates with a chainsaw on a giant ape
in King Kong Lives (1986), Hamilton returned to TV to co-star (with Ron Perlman) in updated
romantic fantasy Beauty And The Beast (1987-89), as Assistant DA Catherine Chandler, but it
was her return to the big screen in megabuck sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), which
secured Hamilton's status as one of the top SF action heroines.
Sarah Conner becomes champion of the human
future - in a nuclear war against smart machines - training herself into a commando and attempting to
assassinate the scientist (Joe Morton) who plans to develop cybernetic technology to threaten the
world.
Since then, Hamilton has played investigative reporter
Amanda Givens in Shadow Conspiracy (opposite
Charlie Sheen), and smalltown Mayor Rachel Wando in disaster movie Dante's Peak (both 1997).
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