Biography of Winona RyderWinona Laura Horowitz (born October 29, 1971), better known under her professional name Winona Ryder, is a two-time Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning American actress. Although Ryder made her screen debut in Lucas (1986), her first significant role came in 1988 with Beetlejuice as Lydia, a Goth teenager, in a performance that gained her critical and commercial recognition. After making various appearances in film and television, Ryder continued her career with the cult film Heathers (1989) in a critically acclaimed performance. Her subsequent roles have not only won her critical praise but numerous film awards. In 2000, Ryder received her Star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California.
In spite of her personal success, Ryder is known for her relationship with actor Johnny Depp throughout the early 1990s. She also received noteworthy media attention for her participation in the investigation of the murder of Polly Klaas in 1993, who was from Ryder's hometown. Ryder also received worldwide attention after her arrest on December 12, 2001 for shoplifting from a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills, California. Since then, with the exception of co-starring in Mr. Deeds (2002), Ryder has not received top billing in a major motion picture.
Born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, she was named after the nearby city of Winona. She was given her middle name, Laura, because of her parents' friendship with Aldous Huxley's wife, Laura Huxley. Her mother, Cynthia Palmer (née Istas), is an author, as well as a video producer and editor. Her father, Michael Horowitz, is an author, editor, publisher and antiquarian bookseller. Ryder's mother is a Buddhist and her father is an atheist. Regarding her ancestry, Ryder has described herself as "Jewish", her paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia, and relatives of hers died in the Holocaust. Ryder has one sibling, a younger brother, Yuri, an older half-brother, Jubal, and an older half-sister, Sunyata. Ryder's notable family friends include her godfather, LSD guru Timothy Leary, and beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
In 1978, when Ryder was seven years old, she and her family relocated to Rainbow, a commune near Elk, California, where they lived with seven other families on a 300-acre (1.2 km²) plot of land. As the remote property had no electricity or television sets, Ryder began to devote her time to reading and became an avid fan of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Her mother did, however, show her some films on a screen in the barn and consequently - she developed an interest in acting. At age ten, Ryder and her family moved on again, this time to Petaluma, California. During her first week at the Kenilworth Middle School, she was bullied by a group of her peers who mistook her for an effeminate, scrawny boy. As a result, she ended up being homeschooled that year. In 1983, when Ryder was twelve, she enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater in nearby San Francisco, where she took her first acting lessons. Ryder graduated from Petaluma High School with a 4.0 GPA in 1987. She has also revealed that she suffers from aquaphobia due to the trauma caused by an incident in which she nearly drowned at age twelve.[3] This caused problems when she had to act in some of the underwater scenes in Alien: Resurrection (1997) and the scenes had to be reshot numerous times.
In 1985, Ryder sent a videotaped audition, where she recited a monologue from the novel Franny and Zooey, to appear in the film Desert Bloom. She was rejected and the part went to Annabeth Gish.[7][3] Despite her rejection, David Seltzer, a writer and director, soon noticed her talent and cast her in his 1986 film Lucas. When asked how she wanted her name to appear in the credits, she suggested "Ryder" as her surname as a Mitch Ryder album which belonged to her father was playing in the background. Her next movie was Square Dance (1987), where her teenage character creates a bridge between two different worlds - a traditional farm in the middle of nowhere and a large city. Ryder won acclaim for her role, and The Los Angeles Times called her performance in Square Dance "a remarkable debut". Both films, however, failed to gain Ryder any notice, and were only marginally successful commercially. Director Tim Burton decided to cast Ryder in his film Beetlejuice (1988), after being impressed with her performance in Lucas. In the film, she plays gothic teenager Lydia Deetz, suffering from depression. Lydia's family moves to a haunted house populated by ghosts played by Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Keaton. Lydia quickly finds herself the only human with a strong empathy toward the ghosts and their situation. The film was a success at the box office, and Ryder's performance and the overall film received mostly positive reviews from critics.
Ryder landed the role of Veronica Sawyer in the 1989 independent film Heathers. The film, a satirical take on teenage life, revolves around Veronica, a character who is strongly opposed to violence as a way to resolve conflicts and is ultimately forced to choose between the will of society and her own heart after her murderous boyfriend begins killing popular high school students. Upon taking the role, Ryder's agent begged her to turn it down, saying the film would "ruin her career". Reaction to the film was mostly lukewarm, but Ryder's performance was critically embraced, with The Washington Post stating Ryder is "Hollywood's most impressive inge'nue [sic] ... Ryder ... makes us love her teen-age murderess, a bright, funny girl with a little Bonnie Parker in her. She is the most likable, best-drawn young adult protagonist since the sexual innocent of Gregory's Girl." The film was a box office flop, yet achieved status as a predominant cult film.[14] Later that year, she starred in Great Balls of Fire!, playing the thirteen-year-old bride of Jerry Lee Lewis. The film was a box office failure and received largley divided reviews from critics. In April 1989, she played the title role in the music video for Mojo Nixon's Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child.[15] In 1990, Ryder was selected for four film roles. In Edward Scissorhands (1990), she played the leading female role alongside her then-boyfriend Johnny Depp. The film reunited Tim Burton and Ryder, who had previously worked together on Beetlejuice in 1988. Edward Scissorhands was a significant box office success, grossing US$56 million at the United States box office and received much critical devotion. Later that year, she withdrew from a role in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III, after traveling to Rome, Italy, for filming due to over-exhaustion. Eventually, Coppola's daughter Sofia Coppola was given the role. Ryder's third role was in the family comedy-drama Mermaids (1990), which co-starred Cher and Christina Ricci. Mermaids was a moderate box office success and was embraced critically. Ryder's performance was also acclaimed; critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "Winona Ryder, in another of her alienated outsider roles, generates real charisma." For her performance, Ryder received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Ryder then performed alongside Cher and Christina Ricci in the video for "The Shoop Shoop Song", the theme from Mermaids. Following Mermaids she starred in the lead role in box office flop Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1991).
In 1993, Ryder became involved in the Polly Klaas kidnapping case. Klaas lived in Petaluma, the same town where Ryder grew up. Ryder offered a $200,000 reward for the 12 year-old kidnap victim's safe return. After Polly's death, Ryder starred in the 1994 film adaptation of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and dedicated it to her memory. Little Women was one of Polly's favorite novels.
During a sentencing hearing related to the 2001 shoplifting incident (see below), Ryder's attorney, Mark Geragos, referred to her work with the Polly Klaas Foundation and other charitable causes. In response, Deputy District Attorney Ann Rundle said: "What's offensive to me is to trot out the body of a dead child." Ryder was visibly upset at the accusation and Rundle was admonished by the judge. Outside the courthouse, Polly's father Mark Klaas defended Ryder's character and expressed outrage at the prosecutor's comments.
On December 12, 2001, Ryder was arrested on shoplifting charges in Beverly Hills, California; she stood accused of stealing $5,500 worth of designer clothes and accessories at a Saks Fifth Avenue department store. Los Angeles District Attorney Stephen Cooley produced a team of eight prosecutors. Cooley filed four felony charges against her in what was described by British newspaper The Guardian as a "show-trial". Ryder hired noted celebrity defense attorney Mark Geragos. Negotiations for a plea-bargain failed at the end of summer 2002. As noted by Joel Mowbray from the National Review, the prosecution was not ready to offer the actress what was given to 5,000 other defendants in similar cases, an open door to a no-contest plea on misdemeanor charges. Winona Ryder agreed under signature to pay two Civil Demands, as permitted under California's Statute for Civil Recovery for Shoplifting, from Sak's Fifth Avenue that would have completely reimbursed Sak's Fifth Avenue for the "stolen" and surrendered merchandise while detained in the Security Offices of the Sak's Fifth Avenue store, and before she was mirandized and arrested by the Los Angeles Commissioned Police.
During the trial, she was also accused of using drugs without valid prescriptions. Ryder was convicted of grand theft and vandalism, but was acquitted on the third felony charge, burglary. In December 2002, she was sentenced to three years' probation, 480 hours of community service, $3,700 in fines, and $6,355 in restitution to the Saks Fifth Avenue store - and was ordered to attend psychological and drug counseling by the judge. The charges were eventually reviewed, and on June 18, 2004, the felonies were reduced to misdemeanors.
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