How old is Sigourney Weaver, who does she play in Doc Martin, what are her biggest movies and who is her husband Jim Simpson?
HANDY with a flame-thrower, and always ready to make a random cameo, Signourney Weaver is one of the original heroines of Hollywood.
Kicking off her career in the horror classic Alien, the actress went on to have a glittering and incredibly varied career. Here's what we know about her...
Who is Sigourney Weaver, how old is she and what is her background?
Sigourney Weaver is an American actress born Susan Alexandra Weaver on October 8, 1949 in Manhattan.
The 68-year-old's mother was from Colchester in Essex and her father was a TV executive.
Sigourney, who was 5ft 10in by the time she was 14, studied English at Stanford University where she first started acting, inspiring her to do a Masters at Yale University School of Drama.
At that time she performed in two stage shows, one of which saw her tread the boards with Meryl Streep.
Then she bagged her first film role in Woody Allen's Annie Hall in 1977, two years before changing the face of space horror forever in Alien.
Currently, however, she is promoting an incredibly different project - a cameo in gentle, Cornwall-set ITV drama Doc Martin, in which she plays American tourist Beth Traywick.
She previously appeared in the show in 2015, and she was so keen to return to the "dream job" that she demanded that the Avatar 2 filming schedule be moved around for her.
What are Sigourney Weaver's biggest movies?
Sigourney played Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott's Alien in 1979, which was a hugely popular and successful film, spawning a franchise that Scott is still working on to this day.
Needless to say, critics agreed that it was Sigourney's "strong, sympathetic" performance that gave the film the edge.
After Alien, Sigourney reprised the role of Ripley in sequels Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.
She also took memorable roles in The Year Of Living Dangerously, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Gorillas In The Mist, Working Girl and Death And The Maiden.
The second era of Sigourney movies included space spoof Galaxy Quest, rom-com caper Heartbreakers, Louis Sachar adaptation Holes, M. Night Shamalyan's The Village, comedy Be Kind Rewind and thriller Vantage point.
In the last decade she's made numerous film cameos and had a role in Aliens director James Cameron's Avatar, as well as The Cabin In The Woods, Chappie and A Monster Calls.
She's also lent her voice to the animated films Wall.E and Finding Dory, among others.
Is Sigourney Weaver married and what is her net worth?
Sigourney has been married to 61-year-old stage director Jim Simpson since October 1, 1984, and they have a 27-year-old daughter called Charlotte.
As of 2017, Sigourney Weaver is estimated to be worth £30m.
The passionate environmentalist and animal lover is an ambassador for The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and she spoke to the United Nations about the threat to ocean habitats in 2006.
She is also a long-time friend of Halloween star Jamie Lee Curtis who admitted to Sigourney in 2015 that she had never seen Alien all the way through as she was too scared.
