Veronica Cartwright was 30 years old when “Alien” was released in 1979. In the film, she played Joan Lambert, a crew member of the Nostromo who, like most of her colleagues, was killed by a Xenomorph alien. The Cartwright surname was already a familiar one in Hollywood by the time “Alien” came along, given that Veronica is the older sister of Angela Cartwright — who as a child starred as Brigitta von Trapp in the classic 1965 movie musical “The Sound of Music,” as well as the classic sci-fi TV series “Lost in Space” from 1965 to 1968.
Before Veronica Cartwright took her trip to the far reaches of outer space in “Alien,” she appeared in several screen projects, including four episodes of “Leave It to Beaver,” a pair of episodes in the series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and reteamed with Hitchcock for his classic movie thriller “The Birds” in 1963. Before playing Lambert in 1979, Cartright alternated her career between TV and movies, guest-starring in such shows as “Serpico” and playing a major role opposite Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum in the 1978 remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
Cartwright worked non-stop after “Aliens,” with several high-profile projects including the movies “The Right Stuff” and “The Witches of Eastwick,” as well as guest turns in such TV hits as “Supernatural,” “Bosch” and “The Good Doctor.” In 2023, she appeared in two episodes of the series “Gotham Knights.” Like Tom Skerritt, Cartwright reprised Lambert with a voice role in the 2014 video game “Alien: Isolation.”
