Sigourney Weaver was a rising theater star in the 1970s when she booked the role of Ripley in Ridley Scott's "Alien." This part was initially given to Veronica Cartwright, but once Scott got a load of Weaver's sui generis mix of toughness and vulnerability, he couldn't envision anyone else playing the film's sole human survivor.

In time, Weaver's Ripley became one of the most compelling genre heroes in film history. She earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress as a hardened, kill-'em-all Ripley in James Cameron's "Aliens," and should've flat-out won an Oscar for her portrayal of the character as a defiant, grief-stricken fighter speeding toward a chest-burster death in David Fincher's magnificent "Alien 3." Weaver deserved a more coherent fourth go-round in Jean-Pierre Jeun

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