Susan began using the name Sigourney Weaver in 1963, after a character in F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. She attended high school in New York City and later studied English at Stanford University, then drama at Yale where she appeared in original plays by friend and classmate Christopher Durang.

She played the role of Lieutenant Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien. She then reprised the role in all three sequels: Aliens, Alien�, and Alien: Resurrection. She was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for portraying Ripley in Aliens.

She is also well known for playing Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. She also played the role of the agorophobic criminal psychologist Dr Helen Hudson in the 1995 movie Copycat.

She is one of only ten actors and actresses to have received two Academy Award nominations in the same year. Weaver received a Best Actress nomination for her role as gorilla conservationist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role as Katharine Parker in Working Girl opposite Harrison Ford and Melanie Griffith. She did not win either one but she did win a Golden Globe for each role.

She is the daughter of the late NBC television executive Pat Weaver and his wife the former Desir�e Hawkins Ingles, a former British actress. Sigourney Weaver is also a niece of comedian and actor Doodles Weaver. Since 1984 she has been married to theater director Jim Simpson (of The Flea Theater) and they have one child, Charlotte Simpson (born 1990).