Sigourney Weaver set cinema screens alight 46 years ago as Alien ’s warrant officer Ripley: Jonesy the (“little shithead”) cat in one hand, a flamethrower in the other. An exquisite visual summation of this new, radical female sci-fi action character, and the soon-to-be-star playing her. A six-foot, New York born-and- bred, Off-Broadway actor who, it was opined, would never make it in Hollywood. And, well, if you measure her career against some traditional models for 1970s actresses — roles as the plain, platonic pal, or the hankie-holding girlfriend — Sigourney Weaver didn’t. Instead, she remade it.

Already known in theatre circles pre- Alien for her bold and bonkers characters, she had started as she meant to go on. And while a taste for the anti-clichéd may have been at least p

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