Linda Carroll Hamilton is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Sarah Connor
in The Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Catherine Chandler in
the 1987–1990 television series Beauty and the Beast, for which she was nominated for
two Golden Globes and an Emmy. Hamilton had a recurring role as Mary Elizabeth Bartowski
on NBC's Chuck.
Early life Hamilton was born in Salisbury, Maryland.
Her mother was a Mayflower descendant.
Hamilton's father, Carroll Stanford Hamilton, a physician, died when she was five, and her
mother remarried to a police chief.
Hamilton has an identical twin sister, one older sister and one younger brother.
She has said that she was raised in a "very boring, white Anglo-Saxon" family, and “voraciously
read books” during her spare time.
Hamilton went to Wicomico Junior High and Wicomico High School in Salisbury, with her
twin sister, Leslie.
She studied for two years at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, before moving on
to acting studies in New York City.
While attending Washington College, Hamilton states her acting professor told her she had
no hope of earning a living as an actress.
In New York, she attended acting workshops given by Lee Strasberg.
Career Hamilton's acting debut came first on television,
followed by a major role as Lisa Rogers in the prime-time soap opera Secrets of Midland
Heights.
Her big-screen debut was in the thriller TAG: The Assassination Game and as a result, she
was listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1982" in John Willis' Screen World,
Vol. 34.
She also shared a starring role in the CBS made for TV movie Country Gold, with Loni
Anderson and Earl Holliman. Hamilton played the lead role in Children
of the Corn, based on the horror short story by Stephen King.
The movie, which made $14 million at the box office, was panned by critics.
Hamilton's next role was in The Terminator, opposite Michael Biehn, in 1984.
The movie was an unexpectedly huge commercial and critical success.
Following The Terminator, Hamilton starred in Black Moon Rising, an action thriller with
Tommy Lee Jones.
She then returned to television as a guest-star in the mystery series Murder, She Wrote, scoring
favorable reviews.
Hamilton next starred opposite Ron Perlman in the TV series Beauty and the Beast.
The series was critically acclaimed, and she received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
Hamilton left the series in 1989 and it ended in 1990.
Hamilton returned to the big screen in 1990 with Michael Caine in Mr. Destiny and in 1991
with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the sequel to The Terminator.
The latter was a smash at the box office, grossing over $500 million, more than any
other film of that year.
Hamilton underwent intense physical training to emphasize the character's transformation
from the first film.
Her identical twin sister Leslie Hamilton Gearren was Linda's double in Terminator 2.
Hamilton received two MTV Movie Awards for her role in the film, one for Best Female
Performance and the other for Most Desirable Female.
She reprised the character, Sarah Connor, for the theme park attraction T2 3-D. In 1990,
Hamilton was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the
world.
Following the success of the Terminator series, she hosted Saturday Night Live.
She returned to television in A Mother's Prayer playing a mother who lost her husband and
is diagnosed with AIDS.
For her performance in the film, which co-starred Kate Nelligan and Bruce Dern, Hamilton was
awarded a CableACE Award for best dramatic performance and nominated for another Golden
Globe in 1996.
That same year, Hamilton filmed two motion pictures that were released one week apart
in 1997: Shadow Conspiracy with Charlie Sheen and Dante's Peak with Pierce Brosnan.
Shadow Conspiracy flopped at the box office, but Dante's Peak grossed $180 million and
was one of the biggest commercial hits of the year.
She received a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for female performance in Dante's Peak.
Hamilton has since appeared on the television shows Frasier and According to Jim and has
done more TV movies, including On the Line, Robots Rising, Rescuers: Stories of Courage:
Two Couples, Point Last Seen, and The Color of Courage. Hamilton and her Beauty and the
Beast costar Ron Perlman reunited in the 2005 post-Vietnam war drama Missing in America.
In 2009, she returned as Sarah Connor in Terminator Salvation, in voice-overs only.
In 2010, she joined the cast of Chuck in the recurring guest role of Mary Elizabeth Bartowski,
a CIA agent and long-missing mother of Chuck and Ellie.
She also appears as a guest star in the Showtime cable television show Weeds as the marijuana
supplier for the show's main character.
In November 2011, she narrated the Chiller The Future of Fear horror documentary.
Personal life Hamilton has been married and divorced twice.
Her first marriage was to Bruce Abbott, from 1982 to 1989, who walked out on her when she
was pregnant with their son Dalton.
In 1991 she moved in with film director James Cameron following his divorce from Kathryn
Bigelow.
They had a daughter, Josephine, born in 1993.
She and Cameron married in 1997, but the marriage was short-lived, ending in a $50 million divorce
settlement in 1999.
Hamilton has described herself politically as a Democrat, but she voted for Republican
candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger, her Terminator co-star, in the 2003 California gubernatorial
election after his campaign convinced her he was suitable for the job.
In an October 2005 appearance on Larry King Live, Hamilton told the audience that she
has bipolar disorder, which she said destroyed her marriage to first husband Bruce Abbott,
whom she admitted having abused verbally and physically, and eventually sought treatment.
Filmography Awards and nominations
References
External links Linda Hamilton at the Internet Movie Database
2006 Linda Hamilton Interview on Sidewalks Entertainment
Linda Hamilton interview with Larry King