Biography of Linda Hamilton
from Official LHO web site

Linda's real dad suffered from bipolar disorder, and though Linda was diagnosed early, too, she refused any drug therapy. All her life she has suffered from manic-depressive illness, a condition that propelled her to brilliance in the manic state and to depths of despair in the melancholic one. By the end of her 30s she gave in and since 1996 she is on anti-depressants to control her illness.
"Then at a certain point it became exhausting, and I said, 'I need help.' I believe a brief stint of Prozac saved my life. I'd gotten into such a place of mortal anxiety, but now I'm fine."
But still during her childhood Linda suffered from the fact that everybody saw her as just one with her sister. At the age of 16, this frustration lead to a severe identity crisis: she cut her hair and eyelashes and finally weighed about 167 pounds just to differ from her sister. "I wanted to be ugly. I became the intellectual, the thinker, as opposed to my sister the cheerleader. I was voted class snob."

Although Linda began acting at an early age, she never considered acting as a career: she had plans to become an archeologist or possibly a firefighter. For a couple of years Linda also studied classical piano and - while still being in high school - had a summer job working in a local zoo as a security guard.
Her love of acting continued to grow while working with a children's theatre group in Salisbury. One of her earliest acting memories is playing Sleeping Beauty.
"My mother took some of her fake costume jewelry apart and made a crown for me. I swear I found myself. I'll never forget the joy of that crown."
Her steady belief is that "acting decided to have its way with me. I loved it; I always loved it. I did children's theater when I was young. No particular talent for it, I might add. You know, I have a twin sister, so they hired my twin sister and me to do this play. I'm sure they thought it was really cute to have the Hamilton twins playing the same role. I discovered my passion for acting then."
In high school she was the assistant to the drama coach and even directed a play. After graduating in 1974, Linda enrolled in two acting classes at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. There Linda performed in a couple of student productions like Prometheus Bound by John Million and Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine.
Soon after, she became involved with the Kent Players, a community theatre group based in Chestertown. She played in a theatrical version of Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones, in Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge a musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest called Ernest In Love, and Looice.
In 1989, Linda returned to Washington College to receive an Alumni Citation as "outstanding student" at the College's 207th commencement exercises.

After two years at Washington College "... I decided I loved it [acting], and I decided to go to New York to study at an acting school". So Linda and her then boyfriend moved to New York in 1976, where she joined the famous Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute; there she studied Method Acting and - among others - was taught by Nicholas Ray.
After appearing in numerous student stage productions such as Shakespeare's Richard III, she made her professional debut with a small role on the daytime television drama Search for Tomorrow.
Because her then agency thought her unsuited to the theatre, they encouraged Linda to try her luck in Los Angeles.
In 1979 she borrowed $ 2,000 and moved to California. When she earned her first role, a guest spot on Shirley, she was down to her last $ 6.

Her first features for television were Rape and Marriage: The Rideout Case and Country Gold.
When Linda tried to make the down payment on her Venice home in 1982, she discovered that her then business manager had embezzled $107,000 of her earnings. The manager had also been stealing from his other clients, was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison.
"It was a nightmare, I had to borrow the down payment." Because of frustration she began sniffing cocaine. At her peak, she and a friend would buy an ounce and snort it until it was gone. "There are drugs that expand the soul, but cocaine is one that just closes the heart. It's a very alone, horrible sort of shrinking drug. I quit on my own, but there was a time when I feared I would have to go in for treatment. I really was in trouble." She needed three years to get clean again.
On the other hand Linda met Bruce Abbott in 1982 on the set of her first motion picture T.A.G. - The Assassination Game. He played a psychopath trying to kill her. In real life they married December 19, 1982.

Linda's first big break was in 1984, when she played the part of Sarah Connor in James Cameron's The Terminator. From 1987 to 1989 she came to fame as Catherine Chandler in TV's Beauty and the Beast. The show earned her nominations for an Emmy, Golden Globe, and People's Choice Award; she received a Saturn and a Romy Award.
Linda and her Beauty co-star Ron Perlman are still very close friends.
In 1989 Linda bought a house in Arles/France trying to spend there a lot of time, but - as often in life - personal and professional matters thwarted that plans:
After having miscarried already, Linda got pregnant again in 1989 and quit Beauty due to her wish to be just there for her family. October 4, 1989 Linda's and Bruce's baby boy Dalton Bruce Abbott was born. Shortly after their son's birth Linda and her husband separated and got divorced by the end of 1989.

Some time between Beauty and T2 Linda bought a house in Hawaii as it was more agreeable living there than in a smog city like Los Angeles. But she also owns a house in Hollywood not wanting to live in hotels while working.
Still having energy between shooting movies and doing television Linda also founded her own theatre group together with some friends.

In March 1990 Linda was offered to reprise her role as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2- Judgment Day. 13 weeks before production started, she began military as well as fitness training for her advanced interpretation of the Sarah character. When production finally started, Linda, who had gained 40 pounds during her pregnancy, was a lean machine. Though she weighed as much as she had in 1984 for The Terminator, she was now all muscle, measuring about 14 percent body fat.
The new interpretation of Sarah Connor earned her MTV Movie Awards for "best female performance" as well as "most desirable female"; she also received another Saturn Award.

After T2 Linda moved together with her T director James Cameron.
Because of her continued heavy workout Linda suffered two more miscarriages, but February 15, 1993 Linda's and James's daughter Josephine Archer Cameron was born.
Early in 1994 Linda moved out with the kids to her own place during preproduction of Cameron's True Lies. They were together again at the movie's premiere.

For her made for TV movie A Mother's Prayer (1995) Linda received a Cable Ace Award and a Golden Globe nomination. 1997's Dante's Peak earned her a Blockbuster Award.

July 26, 1997 Linda and James Cameron married on a free weekend of Cameron's Titanic shooting.
Just some weeks after the 1998 Academy Awards the couple separated, and December 1998 Linda filed for divorce because of "irreconcilable differences".
Some time between 1999 and early 2000 the divorce case was settled.

In January 2000 Linda won a Golden Satellite Award for her role as Anna Sipes in 1999's TV drama "The Color of Courage".

Meanwhile she also seems to have to come to terms with James Cameron as well. "I love him as much as I ever did," Linda told an interviewer in spring 2000, "but it doesn't mean that the heartbreak wasn't huge and I haven't suffered. I knew who he was when I married him, and I love him still. He's lucky I took a vow to love him," and adding candidly, "I'm glad I don't have to share all of the day with him."
It was often reported that their relationship was tempestuous, but in early 2001 she insists they're friendly.
"People would be shocked if they knew how friendly," she says. "That's a real testament to me. He watched me resurrect a successful relationship with my first husband because of our child."

At the end of 2000 Linda headed a theater production of "Laura" -- her first venture on L.A. stage in more than a decade.
For that moment it was drama. In the future, it may be a TV sitcom or something outside the business altogether.
"I have not yet decided that acting is the best way to contribute to this world, and I'm a big contributor," Linda was cited in November 2000. "I really would like to take a huge step and head the United Way, be a traveling ambassador. Whatever I can do to be a source of light. I want to hold the crack babies. I want to travel to Africa. I want to do something for the rain forests."
Concerning acting Linda wants to be lighter, less ferocious and troubled. She's "chasing sitcoms" and is trying to option a script for an independent film she expects to produce as well as star in.

Nonetheless, in October 2001 Linda won the Video Premiere Award as best supporting actress in the psychological thriller "Skeletons in the Closet".

Currently Linda and her kids are living in Malibu near Point Dume.

Linda is a big football fan (SF 49ers), still works out, smokes cigarettes and loves ice cream. She also likes travelling around Europe, especially France and Italy. In her free time she writes, likes playing Scrabble, collects Santa Claus and Easter Bunny figurines, is mad about horses, has dogs and cats and is an avid fly-fisherwoman. Fishing is one of her major delights.
"I go to Alaska and fish salmon. I do some halibut fishing, lake fishing, trout fishing, fly fishing. I look quite good in waders. I love my waders. I don't think there is anything sexier than just standing in waders with a fly rod. I just love it."
Her first trophy fish, a 25 -inch landlocked salmon caught in summer 2000, is now mounted. "You've never seen anyone more thrilled. It's literally over my fireplace -- for another couple of weeks at least," she says with a laugh in March 2001.

Linda also reads a lot. March 2001 she described herself as a child who discovered that reading assuaged feelings of loneliness. She talks a great deal about books, and literature and poetry. "I carry Yeats with me wherever I go. He's my constant companion. I always can find some comfort in Yeats no matter what the situation is. Months and months and months go by and I know I need to switch to Shelley or somebody else, but right now Yeats is enough for me."

But most of all Linda loves spending time with her kids.
"I love being home with them," she says. "It's nice to be fully present, although being a single mother has its inconveniences. It's hard enough that their daddies don't live here, but they're very present in their lives. Children and dads are constantly coming and going. In the summer it's like military maneuvers. I'll do anything so the children don't feel absence and loss. Basically I've kept them Hollywood-free, or as much as that's possible -- I mean [Josephine's] daddy is Jim Cameron," she says. "I have to be the great equalizer -- he's buying ranches and helicopters, and I'm like, 'Pick up your clothes and make your bed.' "
The role of soccer mom suits her fine, she says, explaining that she discovered one of her favorite things was going to her son's Little League games.
"I try to keep a balance. I actually believe that children want normal parents, they don't want celebrities or important parents or anything different from all the other parents."

"I'm very, very much my own middle-class self in front of people, because that's who I am, and what I do and who I am are very different."

"I'm completely happy. I'm just so happy," she concludes. "I have great friends, intimate relationships, loving children and a community and a church behind me. I'm just not missing much."

Check out The Offical Linda Hamilton Web Site - see Links.