SHE featured in one of the biggest sci-fi movies of all time before trading A-list fame for a career as a teacher.
Florida-born Carrie Henn, now 47, was just 12 when she found notoriety as Newt in the 1986 movie Aliens.
Carrie Henn, now 47, played youngster Newt when she was just 12Credit: Alamy
The movie was Carrie’s first and last venture into the film worldCredit: Getty
The eerie film was a sequel to the 1979 classic directed by the formidable Ridley Scott.
As adorable curly-haired Newt – the only survivor from the Hadley’s Hope settlement on Acheron following a Xenomorph infestation – Carrie warmed hearts with her performance.
The character was one of only four who survived – yet her character tragically died before the film wrapped.
Newt passed away after an escape pod in which she was travelling crashed, causing her carrier to be filled with water.
Making her mark in the film world, Carrie won a Saturn Award and Young Artist Award for her performance.
Yet the movie marked both the start and end of her film career.
Her only other acting role is from 2020 – vocing a union worker in the animated movie Thunder Island.
Carrie moved back to the US and has since confirmed: “It was a decision that I made.
“My parents have always been encouraging of me to do what I want.”
She then told Tulsa World in 2016: “That’s what a lot of people have a hard time understanding.
“They don’t understand that [acting] wasn’t my passion. It wasn’t my dream. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Was it an amazing experience? Absolutely. Would I do it again? Of course.
“But it wasn’t my passion. Teaching was.”
She told how she had dreamed of a career in education before finding film star fame.
She added: “As a child, I always enjoyed sort of lining up my dolls, especially my Cabbage Patch Kid and teaching to them and I really enjoyed that kind of stuff.”
After graduating, she became a school teacher at Shaffer Elementary, in Atwater, California.
She went on to have one child with husband Nathan Lutcher, who she married in 2005.
On her Instagram page, Carrie now describes herself as: “Wife, mother, educator and child-Actress. (Newt – Aliens).”
Carrie’s character sadly died in the Alien follow-up movieCredit: Alamy
Carrie told how teaching was her ‘passion’ – and had been from a young ageCredit: Instagram