Linda Hamilton
Linda Carroll Hamilton (born September 26, 1956) is an American actress. Known for portraying tough, resilient characters,[1][2] she made her film debut in 1979 before achieving fame with her starring role as Sarah Connor in The Terminator (1984) and two of its sequels, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and Terminator: Dark Fate (2019). She is the recipient of various accolades, including two Saturn Awards, two MTV Movie Awards, a Satellite Award and a Romy Award, as well as nominations for three Golden Globes and one Primetime Emmy.
This article is about the actress. For the international soccer player, see Linda Hamilton (soccer).
Linda Hamilton
Actress
1979–present
2
Hamilton's other film credits include Children of the Corn (1984), Black Moon Rising, King Kong Lives (both 1986), Mr. Destiny (1990), Dante's Peak (1997), and The Kid & I (2005). On television, she starred as Catherine Chandler in Beauty and the Beast (1987–1989) and played the recurring role of Mary Elizabeth Bartowski on NBC's Chuck (2010–2012). Her theatre work includes Laura (Tiffany Theater, 2000) and The Night of the Iguana (Berkshire Theatre, 2006). Divorced from actor Bruce Abbott and director James Cameron, Hamilton has a child from each marriage.
Early life[edit]
Hamilton was born in Salisbury, Maryland, on September 26, 1956.[3] Hamilton's father died when she was five, and her mother later married a police chief.[4] Hamilton had an identical twin sister, Leslie Hamilton Freas (1956–2020),[5][6] as well as one older sister, a younger brother and a stepbrother.[5][7] She has said that she was raised in a "very boring, white Anglo-Saxon" household, and that she "voraciously read books" in her spare time.[4] Hamilton went to Wicomico Junior High and Wicomico High School in Salisbury.[8]
She studied for two years at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, before moving on to acting studies in New York City.[8] Hamilton has said that her acting professor at Washington College told her she had no hope of earning a living as an actress.[9] In New York, she attended acting workshops given by Lee Strasberg.[3]
Career[edit]
1979–1983: Film debut and early roles[edit]
Hamilton made her professional debut at age 23 with a small part in the 1979 drama Night-Flowers. Her first major role came the following year when she appeared as Lisa Rogers on the short-lived CBS soap opera Secrets of Midland Heights (December 1980–January 1981). Next, she appeared in her first starring film role in the low-budget thriller TAG: The Assassination Game (1982), and co-starred that same year in the made-for-television movie Country Gold. She was listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1982" in John A. Willis' Screen World, Vol. 34.[10]
1984–1997: The Terminator franchise and television work[edit]
Hamilton made two prominent film appearances in 1984: firstly, a starring role in Children of the Corn, a horror film based on the short story by Stephen King. Hamilton played Vicky Baxter, a motorist who runs into trouble while travelling with her boyfriend through rural Nebraska. The film was financially profitable, making US$14 million at the domestic box office against a budget of US$3 million,[11] but received generally negative reviews.[12] In a more positive assessment by The New York Times, Hamilton's performance was praised.[13] Next, she co-starred in James Cameron's science fiction action-thriller The Terminator (1984). Hamilton played Sarah Connor, a young waitress—and soon-to-be mother of a valiant resistance leader—who finds herself at the center of a nightmarish ordeal when a soldier travels back in time to help her defeat a cyborg assassin, sent from the future to execute her. The film was a surprise commercial hit,[14] topping the U.S. box office for two weeks.[15] Critics believed it to be a perfect example of its genre,[16] with some attributing its strength to Hamilton's performance; The Hollywood Reporter wrote that she displayed "tremendous resiliency" as Connor,[17] while Janet Maslin felt she played the part "engrossingly" in her review for The New York Times.[18] That same year, she guest-starred in four episodes of the NBC police drama Hill Street Blues.
Following the success of The Terminator, Hamilton starred as car thief Nina in the action thriller Black Moon Rising (1986). In an effusive review for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Wilmington praised "the clean thrust of the plot, the furiously lucid action and the canny, almost stylized, minimalist performances of the actors (Jones, Hamilton, [et al.])".[19] Also that year, she guest-starred in an episode of Murder, She Wrote and headlined the big-budget adventure film King Kong Lives, a sequel to the 1976 remake of King Kong. The film was a moderate financial success but was universally panned by critics.[20]
Hamilton's next major role was that of savvy district attorney Catherine Chandler in the television series Beauty and the Beast. A modern re-telling of the classic fairy tale, the show ran for three seasons on CBS between 1987 and 1990, though Hamilton requested to be written out during its third season when she fell pregnant.[21] For her portrayal of Chandler, she won Austria's Romy Award for Favorite Actress in a Series in 1990,[22] as well as receiving Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations in 1988 and 1989, respectively.[23]
Personal life[edit]
Hamilton has been married and divorced twice.[66] Her first marriage, from 1982 to 1989, was to actor Bruce Abbott, who left her when she was pregnant with their son, Dalton, born in 1989.[67] She stated it was because of the way she treated him during their marriage and made a public apology to him in 2004.[68] In 1991,[67] Hamilton began a relationship and moved in[56] with film director James Cameron after filming Terminator 2: Judgment Day.[69] They had a daughter, born in 1993.[67] Hamilton said she experienced postpartum depression after the birth of her second child.[69] Hamilton and Cameron briefly separated when Cameron was filming Titanic (1997) and he began a relationship with actress Suzy Amis, who played a small role in the film.[70][69] Hamilton and Cameron later got back together and married in 1997;[69] this ended in a $50 million divorce settlement in 1999.[69] In a 2019 interview for The New York Times, Hamilton said she had been celibate for "at least 15 years".[56] "One loses track, because it just doesn't matter — or at least it doesn't matter to me. I have a very romantic relationship with my world every day and the people who are in it", she said.[56]
Hamilton started to binge eat when she entered high school.[69] After seeing a psychologist for the first time at the age of 22,[69] she thought acting would help her feel better, but she ended up having a breakdown in the beginning of her acting career and turned to drugs and alcohol use and self-medicated with cocaine in order to get her confidence up.[69] In an October 2005 appearance on Larry King Live, Hamilton discussed her depression and bipolar disorder, which led to violent mood swings and suicidal thoughts during her marriage to Abbott and, in her view, caused the failure of both her marriages.[66] She also discussed how she eventually received therapy and medication to manage the condition.[66]
Hamilton's twin sister, Leslie, died on August 22, 2020, at the age of 63.[6] Hamilton has described herself politically as a Democrat, but she voted for Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger—her Terminator co-star—in the 2003 California election after his campaign convinced her he was suitable for the job.[71] While filming Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Hamilton suffered permanent hearing damage in one ear when Schwarzenegger fired a shotgun inside an elevator after she had removed her ear plugs.[72]