Her role as the tough astronaut in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) made Weaver a recognizable screen player. Having graduated to starring parts, Weaver appeared as a reporter in both Eyewitness (1981, opposite William Hurt) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1983, opposite Mel Gibson). Those films bolstered her standing as a compelling lead, but the immense success of Ghostbusters (1984), in which she played a comically possessed New Yorker romanced by Bill Murray, did more for her career. She played an intelligent hooker in Half Moon Street (1986). Before pulling off the nifty trick of snagging two Oscar nominations-Best Supporting Actress for her comic turn as the bitchy businesswoman in Working Girl and Best Actress for her portrayal of the devoted anthropologist in Gorillas in the Mist-in 1988. She appeared in the lightweight Ghostbusters II (1989), and returned to Ripley (with a shaved head!) in Aliens 3 (1992). She then costarred with Kevin Kline in Dave (1993) as an aloof First Lady who falls in love with the President's "double" and took on the demanding role of a former torture victim who confronts her tormentor in Death and the Maiden (1994).