Age, Biography, and Wiki
Sigourney Weaver was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Elizabeth Inglis, an actress, and Sylvester Pat Weaver, a prominent NBC executive. Her stage name is derived from a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Weaver's early life was marked by her educational pursuits, attending several prestigious schools before graduating from Stanford University and later earning a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University School of Drama.
| Occupation | Environmentalist |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 8 October 1949 |
| Age | 75 Years |
| Birth Place | New York City, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Libra |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
While specific details about Sigourney Weaver's current height and weight are not widely reported, her physical presence has been a notable aspect of her on-screen persona throughout her career.
At the age of 14, Weaver began using the name "Sigourney" after she took it from a minor character in The Great Gatsby. She briefly attended the Brearley School and Chapin School in New York before arriving at the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Connecticut, where she developed an early interest in performing. One of her early roles was in a school adaptation of the poem "The Highwayman", and on another occasion she played a Rudolph Valentino character in an adaptation of The Sheik. She was also involved in theatrical productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and You Can't Take It with You during one summer in Southbury, Connecticut. Known for her height, she reportedly reached 180 cm by the age of 11, which had a negative impact on her self-esteem; she recalled feeling like "a giant spider" and never having "the confidence to ever think [she] could act".
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Dating & Relationship Status
Sigourney Weaver is married. She has maintained a private personal life, with her professional career being the focus of public attention.
On stage, Weaver's Broadway performances include The Constant Wife (1975), Hurlyburly (1984), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (2013), and The Tempest (2025); her performance in Hurlyburly earned her a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. On television, she received Emmy Award nominations for her roles in the horror film Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1998), the drama film Prayers for Bobby (2009), the miniseries Political Animals (2013), and for narrating the National Geographic documentary Secrets of the Whales (2021). Her other television projects include the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero miniseries The Defenders (2017) and the drama miniseries The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (2023).
Her father served as president of NBC from 1953 to 1955, during which time he created The Today Show. Pat's brother, Doodles Weaver, was a comedian and contributor to Mad. She is of Dutch, English, German and Scottish descent through her father.
Weaver performed in the first production of the Stephen Sondheim musical The Frogs while at Yale in 1974, alongside Larry Blyden and fellow students Meryl Streep and Durang. She was briefly an understudy in a John Gielgud production of Captain Brassbound's Conversion thereafter. She also acted in numerous original plays by Durang. In 1974 she made her Broadway debut in the William Somerset Maugham play The Constant Wife acting opposite Ingrid Bergman. Before her on-screen breakthrough, she had appeared only in commercials, a few television roles (including an appearance in the soap opera Somerset), and had a small part in the Woody Allen-directed romantic comedy-drama Annie Hall (1977). Her originally more substantial Annie Hall role was scaled back due to her commitment to the Durang play Titanic.
In 1997, she appeared in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm as Janey Carver, a bored but stylish housewife trapped in a failed marriage. Weaver earned her second Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture nomination for the role and won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. In 1999, she co-starred as Gwen DeMarco in the science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest and as Alice Goodwin, a mother and school nurse whose negligence results in the accidental drowning of a friend's toddler in the drama A Map of the World, earning her a third nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for the latter. She also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that same year.
Weaver has been married to stage director Jim Simpson since October 1, 1984. The two live in the Manhattan borough of New York City, where they founded The Flea Theater together in 1996. They have one child born in 1990, Shar, an author who as of 2024 worked as an adjunct assistant professor of the Digital Storytelling Lab at the Columbia University School of the Arts. In a 2010 interview, Weaver revealed that she underwent therapy to help with the guilt she felt for frequently travelling away from her family for work, stating that "Going to New Zealand to make Avatar when [Shar] was applying to colleges almost killed me." In Simpson's 2002 film adaptation of the play The Guys, he and Shar appear as the husband and child of Weaver's character.
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| Husband | Jim Simpson (m. 1984) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Sigourney Weaver's net worth is estimated to range between $40 million and $60 million depending on the source. Her earnings from the Alien films alone have been substantial, with over $16 million earned from the four movies in the franchise. Her salary for other films like Ghostbusters II and Avatar has also been significant, contributing to her wealth.
Career, Business, and Investments
Weaver's career spans multiple genres, including science fiction, comedy, and drama. Her breakthrough role as Ellen Ripley in Alien (1979) catapulted her to stardom. She reprised this role in Aliens (1986), earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Other notable films include Ghostbusters (1984), Gorillas in the Mist (1988), and Avatar (2009). Weaver has also ventured into television, appearing on shows like Saturday Night Live and voicing characters in animated series.
Weaver appeared two years later as Warrant Officer / Lieutenant Ripley in Ridley Scott's blockbuster film Alien (1979), in a role initially designated to co-star British-born actress Veronica Cartwright until a late change in casting. Cartwright stated to World Entertainment News Network (WENN) that she was in England ready to start work on Alien when she discovered that she would be playing the navigator Lambert in the project, and Weaver had been given the lead role of Ellen Ripley. Reviews of the film were initially mixed, but it has since been ranked among the greatest science fiction horror films and is Weaver's first film to be inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Film critic Gene Siskel called Weaver "an actress who should become a major star," and Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said that Weaver "begins the action looking girlish and serious, but changes into the toughly self-reliant woman who defined her subsequent roles. Her career evolves before our very eyes." Among other accolades, she was nominated for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles at the 33rd British Academy Film Awards.
In 2013, Weaver returned to Broadway in the Christopher Durang play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (2013) alongside David Hyde Pierce, Kristine Nielsen, and Billy Magnussen at the John Golden Theatre. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote "Ms. Weaver holds her own amid this skilled comic company". Marilyn Stasio of Variety wrote, "Weaver, as funny as you’ve ever seen her". The production went onto the Tony Award for Best Play at the 67th Tony Awards.
In 2023, Weaver starred in and executive-produced the Australian miniseries The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "it’s a special treat to see Weaver, who does not overplay her assumed Australian accent, in such a substantial part; if the series seems a little long, one may at least appreciate the greater time it affords us to spend in her company." At the 13th AACTA Awards, Weaver was nominated for Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama.
In 2024, the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain awarded her with the International Goya Award for "her impressive career full of unforgettable films and inspiring us by creating complex and strong female characters." She received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, alongside Peter Weir. On May 7, 2024, Weaver returned to the stage reprising her role as Masha in the one night benefit performance of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike alongside David Hyde Pierce, Kristine Nielsen, and Linda Lavin at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in Lincoln Center.
Social Network
Despite her fame, Sigourney Weaver maintains a relatively low profile on social media platforms, preferring to focus on her professional work rather than personal online presence.
In 1967, shortly before turning 18, Weaver visited Israel and volunteered on a kibbutz for several months. Upon returning to the United States, she attended Sarah Lawrence College. After her freshman year, she transferred to Stanford University as an English major. At Stanford, she was extensively involved in theater. She performed with a group in Palo Alto named The Company, doing Shakespeare plays and "commedia dell'arte in a covered wagon" around the Bay Area, the nature of which she considered "outrageous". She "dressed like an elf and lived in a tree house" and avoided Stanford's drama department as she believed their productions were too "stuffy" and "safe". She had planned to enter Stanford's Ph.D. English program and eventually pursue a career as a writer or a journalist, but changed her mind after getting frustrated by the "deadly dry" honors courses. She eventually graduated in 1972 with a BA in English. She subsequently applied to the Yale School of Drama, performing Bertolt Brecht's Saint Joan of the Stockyards at her audition, and was accepted.
In 2008, Weaver was featured as the voice of the ship's computer in the Pixar and Disney release WALL•E. Also in 2008, she voiced a narrating role in the animated film The Tale of Despereaux (2008), based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo. The film opens with Weaver as narrator recounting the story of the pastel-hued Kingdom of Dor. She also made a rare guest appearance on television playing herself in season 2 episode of the television series Eli Stone in the fall of 2008.
In 2014, Weaver reprised the role of Ripley for the first time in 17 years by voicing the character in the video game Alien: Isolation. Her character has a voice cameo in the main story, and has a central role in the two DLCs set during the events of Alien, with most of the original cast voicing their respective characters. Weaver appeared in the film Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) playing Tuya, directed by Ridley Scott, alongside Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton and Ben Kingsley. In 2015, she co-starred in Neill Blomkamp's science-fiction film Chappie, and stated that she would agree to appear in an Alien sequel, provided that Blomkamp directs.
On February 18, 2015, it was officially announced that an Alien sequel would be made, with Blomkamp slated to direct. On February 25, 2015, Weaver confirmed that she would reprise her role as Ellen Ripley in the new Alien film. However, in a later response to a fan question on Twitter asking what the chances were of his Alien project actually happening, Blomkamp responded "slim". In 2015 and 2017, Weaver played an American tourist in two episodes of the British television series Doc Martin.
Education
Weaver attended several prestigious schools, including the Ethel Walker School, The Chapin School, and The Brearley School. She graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in English and later earned a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University School of Drama in 1974. Her educational background has been a solid foundation for her successful acting career.
Weaver admitted that she had a difficult time at Yale. She was not fond of the shows at Yale Repertory Theatre, and had little luck getting lead roles in school productions. Some of her acting teachers referred to her as "talentless" and advised her to stick to comedy. She later said she pulled through due to her time at the Yale Cabaret, and with the help of friends such as Christopher Durang, who kept casting her in his plays. She graduated from Yale with an MFA in 1974.
