Sigourney Weaver

Born: 8th October 1949
Where: New York

Weaver's greatest achievement has been to invest her character of Lieutenant Ellen Ripley in the Alien film series with iconic status.

However, the versatile actress is equally adept at comedy (Galaxy Quest) and domestic drama (The Ice Storm).

Adopting her name from a character in F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, she attended Yale Drama School.

Stage work and a fleeting role in Annie Hall followed before landing a role in Ridley Scott's 1979 ground-breaking Alien, which led to roles in The Year of Living Dangerously and Ghostbusters.

In the highly regarded 1986 follow up, Aliens, directed by James Cameron, she earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

In 1988, Weaver had starring roles in three hit movies back to back: Gorillas in the Mist, in which she portrayed primatologist Dian Fossey; the Mike Nichols comedy Working Girl; and Ghostbusters II.

She received her second and third Oscar nominations for Gorillas in the Mist and Working Girl opposite Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford.

The lacklustre Alien3 followed but she won plaudits for her role as the First Lady opposite Kevin Kline's President in Dave.

In 1997, Weaver won a Bafta for her role in Ang Lee's critically acclaimed The Ice Storm alongside Kevin Kline, Elijah Wood and Christina Ricci.

Following this, she reprised her role as Ripley in Alien: Resurrection, the fourth film in a series which appeared to be running out of steam.

She showed a less serious side to herself in Galaxy Quest, with Alan Rickman, and Heartbreakers with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ray Liotta.

Weaver has a production company, Goat Cay Productions, which is based in New York, and is working to introduce new voices from the theatre into the film industry.

In 2003, she was the target of her stepson's affections in the drole Tadpole and starred in World Trade Center disaster drama The Guys with Anthony LaPaglia.

She has also appeared as a draconian young offenders' camp boss in the Disney film Holes and was a doomed resident of M Night Shyamalan's The Village.

In 2005, she played a waspish suburban mother in the drama Imaginary Heroes with Jeff Daniels.