“It's nice to know you've done something that will linger. Sarah was the definitive strong female character in cinema at the time and I'm happy she made such an impression on people,” she said. “It's great that you played a character that might someday open someone's eyes to what a woman really can be. She was strong but damaged. A real person in an unreal situation.”
Linda will always be remembered for building a taut, fit, muscled body and transforming Sarah from a timid woman into a ferocious warrier in “Terminator 2.”
“It was simply down to genetics,” she told TNT Magazine of her physical transformation. “Not that I didn't work hard. I was completely disciplined. I watched what I ate and I worked my ass off. But 15 out of 17 actors could have worked as hard and not looked as good, because I have lucky genetics.”
Classic TV Beauties 1980s Countdown
LINDA HAMILTON as Catherine Chandler in "Beauty and the Beast"
Linda was Catherine, the soft and beautiful woman with the big brown eyes who bonded with the lion-like beast, Vincent, and his subterranean New York underworld.
“Beauty's” storyline centered around Catherine, a corporate attorney turned assistant district attorney, and her relationship with Vincent during this fantasy show's three-season run. Catherine was abducted and beaten but was rescued by the Beast, an extremely large man who had lion-like facial features and claws for fingers. Vincent roamed the city streets at night, wearing a hood to hide his appearance from strangers.
“It was a wacky show, even for the 1980s. I loved so many elements of it but didn't deal well with the formula of doing the same thing every week,” Linda said. “I loved it but it also made me terribly unhappy.”
"Beauty" aired for three seasons (1987-90), 56 episodes. Never a huge hit with the masses , the show was critically acclaimed. TV guide ranked "Beauty" as No. 14 on its Top Cult Shows Ever list.
“'The Beast' was very definitive for me because it was several years of my life and [was] really hard,” she said in an interview with www.denofgeeks.com. “Fifteen hours a day... [for] nine months and when you're off you just want to lie down for three months.
“But to be in the bosom of the TV show of a family is really something else. When you're working together for two years you remember something like the Thai soup that you all shared because you shared the same cold coming on.”
Linda's most notable acting role, though, was in cinema, as Sarah Connor in the two science fiction action films, “Terminator” (1984) and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991). Her character has been called “the greatest kick-ass heroine in all of action cinema.”
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Linda said she suffered hearing loss while shooting a scene for “T2.”
“We were shooting a scene in an elevator and I'd forgotten to put my earplugs in,” she said in an interview with www.sidewalkstv.com. “The doors closed, we had shotguns and started blasting, and suddenly I was in agony. I fell to my knees in pain. I thought I had been shot. I was sure I'd been hit by sharpnel. That's how bad it was. The noise was so intense, so extreme.”
Born in Salisbury, Maryland with identical twin sister Leslie, Linda lost her father, who suffered from mental illness, at age 5. Her mother sent the two girls to drama classes when they were young.
“I got to play a character, Badger from 'Wind in the Willows,'” Linda said in an interview with www.metro.co.uk in 2010. “I got to scare a bunch of little children and it felt powerful. It excited me to no end. I've never been the leading lady type, I've always want to be a character actress.”
She attended Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland for two years, then moved to New York to study acting under the famed acting coach Lee Strasberg.
“I was a wild girl,” she told Larry King. “I was a real alcoholic for the longest time. I messed with drugs...I've come through a lot of things. I was a chaotic mess.”
Linda recalled working in New York as a struggling actress and making ends meet working as a cappuccino maker in a New York restaurant.
“I couldn't make foam. I had no business at that espresso machine,” she said. “Every single cappuccino I made was nerve racking...They fired me after three months.”
At age 22 she moved to LA and she made her acting debut on the prime-time soap “Secrets of Midland Heights” in 1980. Her film debut was in 1982's “TAG: The Assassination Game.”
Linda made headlines when she revealed that she suffered from depression and bipolar disorder, and she has been an advocate for people suffering with mental illness.
She admitted, though, that the disorder has probably aided her acting skills,
“Even though I was under the terrible burden of mental illness, I think there was a real survivor's streak in me and a real fighter and a real fierceness and maybe that's what people saw and hired me for,” she said on Larry King's show.
Named by People magazine in 1990 as one of the “50 Most Beautiful People,” Linda was nominated for two Golden Globes and one Emmy for playing Catherine in “Beauty.” She later won a CableACE award for work in “A Mother's Prayer” (1995), and a Satellite award for “The Color of Courage” (1999).
More recently Linda has appeared on TV in episodes of “Chuck” and “Weeds.”
“Comedy is what I'm pursuing because I just want to do work that reflects me and my light heart,” she said in the 2010 interview with www.denofgeeks.com. “I've done so much grief and loss and death, I just think that if I never play another tragic character that would be fine with me.
“I don't want to sit around and make people cry. I want to make people laugh.”
