Linda Hamilton

     Born in Salisbury, Maryland, Linda Hamilton traces her love of acting to her childhood involvement in junior theatre groups in her hometown.  After high school, she studied for two years at Washington College and then moved to New York, where she was accepted into the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.  She also studied under acting coach Nicholas Ray.

     After appearing in numerous stage productions including A View from the Bridge and Richard III, Linda made her professional acting debut with an appearance in the daytime television drama Search for Tomorrow.  She then moved to California, where she began appearing in various movies of the week, among them Rape and Marriage: The Rideout Case costarring with Mickey Rourke, Country Gold and Go Toward the Light.

     Her feature motion picture career began with TAG: The Assassination Game, followed by Children of the Corn, The Stone Boy with Robert Duvall, Black Moon Rising with Tommy Lee Jones, and King Kong Lives. Linda created her breakthrough role as Sarah Connor, the lonely waitress who transforms into a courageous survivor in The Terminator. When she reprised and reinvented her role in Terminator 2, she not only earned praise from both critics and audiences alike (winning both Best Female Performance and Most Desirable Female at the 1992 MTV Awards, but also became the very definition of the strong, intelligent action heroine for years thereafter.

     Since then, she has shown her range by starring in feature films such at Mr. Destiny with James Belushi and Michael Caine, Shadow Conspiracy with Charlie Sheen and Don Sutherland, Silent Fall with Richard Dreyfuss, Dante's Peak with Pierce Brosnan, Skeletons in the Closet opposite Treat William and Jonathan Jackson, as well as in critically-acclaimed cable and television films such as A Mother's Prayer, for which she received a Cable Ace Award and a Golden Globe nomination, The Color of Courage, for which she received a Golden Satellite Award for Best Actress, Bailey's Mistake and A Silent Night.

     Linda is also well-known to television audiences for her starring role in CBS' acclaimed series Beauty and the Beast, for which she received an Emmy nomination and Golden Globe nomination. She has also lent her considerable voice talents to audio books and albums such as Suzanne Finnamore's novel Otherwise Engaged and the Grammy-Award-winning The Children's Shakespeare, as well as such popular animated series as Batman Beyond, Buzz Lightyear of the Star Command and Disney's Hercules.

     Her current film work includes Missing in America opposite Danny Glover and David Strathairn, Smile opposite Sean Astin and Beau Bridges and The Kid & I opposite Tom Arnold and Joe Montegna. Linda did an arc for the FX TV series Thief starring Andre Braugher, and recently completed filming a co-starring role in the independent film Broken starring Heather Graham and Jeremy Sisto.