The actress is back in the spotlight after being confirmed for the final season of ‘Stranger Things’
She’s been played by Game of Thrones stars Emilia Clarke and Lena Headey, but for die-hard fans of the Terminator saga, the real Sarah Connor will always be actress Linda Hamilton. Linda Hamilton is back in the limelight after being cast in the movie “Stranger Things”.
After a troubled youth spent trying to channel her energy through acting, she moved to New York and studied with the famous Lee Strasberg, who taught Marlon Brando and James Dean. It was an acting school that gave no indication that its success would come from horror and science fiction productions.
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In 1984, she starred in two films that would put her on the map: the adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, Children of the Corn, and what initially seemed like an eccentric B-movie from a young, unknown director named James Cameron, the “Terminator.” When he received the script about a waitress and a time traveler running to escape a merciless robot, he took it because he had no other suggestions on the table. However, Cameron was so impressed by her audition that he changed the character’s age from 19 to 27 to fit Hamilton’s profile.
He had low expectations for the project, the budget was minimal, almost everyone involved was a novice, and the most recognizable face was that of a bodybuilder, “pretending to be an actor”. Or at least that’s what she thought about Schwarzenegger before she met him, according to her own account in the documentary “Arnold.”
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Filming was grueling, working day and night, and Hamilton would spend much of her role either hiding or on the run. “It was difficult psychologically. When I finished filming, I was still dreaming about The Terminator.” Despite adversity, this low-budget film was a huge hit with critics and audiences alike.
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However, while the careers of Cameron and Schwarzenegger flourished, Hamilton failed to attract interesting offers. Her most successful post-Terminator role came in a TV series, Beauty and the Beast (1987), produced and written by George RR Martin. Hamilton and Ron Perlman were one of America’s favorite TV couples until she left the show after becoming pregnant by her first husband, Bruce Abbott.
During this interval, he received an unexpected phone call. Seven years after the first film, James Cameron had decided to make a second part of “The Terminator” and wanted to be involved. Hamilton placed two conditions on her acceptance: the first was, obviously, that she had to recover from her pregnancy, and the second was that Sarah Connor had to be a relentless fighter. “I wrote it on her instructions,” James Cameron admitted.
At the time, Bruce Abbott had filed for divorce and saw the role as an opportunity to vent the pain he was going through. “I just had to stand on my feet and do nothing but be a mother to my child and get ready for this movie,” Hamilton said.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) was the highest-grossing film of the year and again wowed critics. Cameron suggested that Hamilton reinvent herself as “a female Bruce Willis,” but she was willing to do comedy. It didn’t take long for her to realize that her profile scared the producers: “They thought I was going to eat them alive, they didn’t know what to do with me.” She didn’t make it easy for herself either. “My response to being this ‘overnight success’ was to go and get pregnant with Jim Cameron and disappear completely. What timing!”
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The actress and the director had fallen in love during the filming of the film, an affair that coincided with the breakdown of Cameron’s marriage. This relationship turned out to be turbulent, full of fights, until the “Titanic” entered their lives.
Following the previous pattern, the director fell in love with actress Suzy Amis, who played Gloria Stuart’s granddaughter in the film. It was a brief but pivotal role in Cameron’s private life and Hamilton was not surprised: “Work and women go hand in hand for Cameron and I should know that. The Titanic was the most painful thing in the world. But it wasn’t because Jim was cheating on me. Jim left with Susie because we took a break from each other and he was free to go with her.’
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After the adventure, Cameron and Hamilton reunited and married, but two years later the director returned to Amis and filed for divorce from his wife. The emotional “storm” of the Hollywood box-office king thrilled the tabloids. The split made headlines and resulted in a record $50 million settlement for Hamilton.
“I was completely devastated for years, but I’m so glad to be out of it. I will never, ever put so much energy into something that isn’t working again,” she revealed in 2019, when she also admitted she had been out of a relationship for several years. “I was single for at least 15 years. One loses the feeling, because it just doesn’t matter.” She says her relationship with Cameron failed because he “fell in love with Sarah Connor”, instead of her. A cry that echoes Rita Hayworth’s sorrow 50 years earlier: “Men go to bed with Gilda, but wake up with me.”
The other reason, her mental health problems. “I had depression as a child but no one noticed and even I didn’t know what it was at the time. I just felt different,” she told Larry King in 2005. Her father’s death when she was 5 years old defined her life. He claimed to have had a happy childhood but, at the same time, experienced “outbursts” of unwarranted anger. When he entered high school, he restricted himself and began to eat voraciously. She first saw a psychologist at the age of 22 and thought acting would help her feel better, but the profession made everything worse. “I really started to fall apart,” she revealed to Oprah Winfrey. “I turned to drugs. Alcohol use. I was medicated, with a lot of cocaine early in my life. Anything I could do to boost my confidence.”
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It was these deeper issues that led to the end of her first marriage to Bruce Abbott. “He was living in fear of me.” For a year, she hardly said a word to her then-husband, locking herself in her room to read science fiction books. The call to work on the Terminator sequel came just when she felt she had lost control of her life, and that experience helped her deal with her addictions. “It couldn’t be a better time for me to get up every morning and go out and work out and start feeling stronger.”
Hamilton did not like the fame or the hustle and bustle of Hollywood and “traded” Los Angeles for a ranch in Virginia, where she moved to care for her mother and stepfather. When they passed away, he moved to New Orleans. After her participation in the film “Dante’s Peak” (1997), she did not participate in major productions for 20 years, limiting her appearances to smaller projects or series such as “Chuck” (2007) and “Weeds” (2005).
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Source :Skai
I am Frederick Tuttle, who works in 247 News Agency as an author and mostly cover entertainment news. I have worked in this industry for 10 years and have gained a lot of experience. I am a very hard worker and always strive to get the best out of my work. I am also very passionate about my work and always try to keep up with the latest news and trends.
