Sigourney gets tough!
QUESTION Is Jennifer Lawrence correct that before she starred in The Hunger Games in 2012, a woman had never been the lead in an action movie?
No! The first female action hero was Pam Grier as the title character in 1974’s Foxy Brown. She takes on a gang of drug dealers who murdered her boyfriend in this classic blaxploitation film.
When Luke Skywalker and han Solo show up to save damsel in distress Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia in 1977’s A New hope, she rolls her eyes, grabs a blaster and takes control of the escape mission.
As Ripley in 1979’s Alien, Sigourney Weaver’s grit and ferocity introduced a new type of female action hero. She carried the torch for women into the 1980s in Aliens.
Linda hamilton’s Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991 resurrected the female lead. Gone was the passive love interest in 1984’s The Terminator, replaced by a tough, resourceful lioness protecting her cub.
In the 2000s, we had sword-wielding Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill series, zombie-slaying Milla Jovovich in Resident evil and vampire killer Kate Beckinsale in Underworld.
Angelina Jolie became the first multiaction female hero with Lara Croft in 2001, Mr & Mrs Smith in 2005, Wanted in 2008 and Salt in 2010.
John Cox, Maidenhead, Berks.
QUESTION Is it true that cats can’t be herded?
‘IT’S like herding cats’ refers to an extremely difficult and quite possibly futile attempt to manage a group of uncontrollable people, such as lawyers, scientists, office workers or children at a party.
In fact, cats are trainable and it is possible to herd them — at least in the sense of getting them to follow you. Moving them from behind as a shepherd rounds up sheep is impossible because they do not flock together naturally.
Just like with dogs, you can train cats to respond to a clicker or a specific word using positive reinforcement and treats.
In this way I can get my cats to follow me round the garden and to come in at night. But if something more interesting comes into view, such as a mouse or squirrel, the spell is quickly broken.
The phrase first appeared in print in the Washington Post Magazine of June 9, 1985: ‘At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.’ It may originate from the opening scene of Monty Python’s Life of Brian in 1979. Some shepherds are discussing the merits of sheep and the topic strays to felines: ‘Can you imagine a herd of cats waiting to be sheared?’
Justine Gregory, Preston, lancs.
QUESTION What is the strangest cover version of a song?
FURTHER to the earlier answer about the eccentric band Dread Zeppelin, another contender must be the Peter Sellers’s version of the Beatles song A hard Day’s Night. he speaks the words in an accurate imitation of Laurence olivier as Richard III, backed by a recorder band playing medieval music.
Andrew Birch, Ashbourne, Derbys. n IS THERE a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection is published, but we’re unable to enter into individual correspondence.