Linda Hamilton Biography

Linda Hamilton is best known to moviegoers as Sarah Connor, the central protagonist in 1984’s The Terminator.

Hamilton grew up in Maryland and briefly attended Washington College before heading to New York to study acting in 1980. Within a couple of years, she’d had a good role in a soap opera and a starring role in a TV movie.

She then played the lead in the movie version of Stephen King‘s Children of the Corn (1984), which made money at the box office but didn’t launch her onto the A-list.

James Cameron‘s The Terminator (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) was a surprise hit and starred Hamilton as a tough-as-nails hero up against a killing robot from the future. She returned to the role for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and voiced the same character in Terminator Salvation (2009).

Those movies aside, Hamilton had more success on television, with several guest roles as well as a starring role in the popular series Beauty and the Beast (1989, co-starring Ron Perlman).

Her other films include Dante’s Peak (1997), Missing in America (2005) and Curvature (2017).