Winona Ryder
29 October, 1971
| 1.61 m
Actress
Producer
Director
Biography
Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and was named after a nearby town, Winona, Minnesota. She is the daughter of Cynthia (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller. Her father's family is Ukrainian Jewish and Romanian Jewish. She grew up in a ranch commune in Northern California which had no electricity. She is the goddaughter of Timothy Leary. Her parents were friends of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and once edited a book called "Shaman Woman Mainline Lady", an anthology of writings on the drug experience in literature, which included one piece by Louisa May Alcott. Ryder would later play the lead role of Josephine March in the adaptation of this author's novel Małe kobietki (1994).Ryder moved with her parents to Petaluma, California when she was ten and enrolled in acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater. At age 13, she had a video audition to the film Kwiat pustyni (1986), but did not get the role. However, director David Seltzer spotted her and cast her in Lucas (1986). When telephoned to ask how she would like to have her name appear on the credits, she suggested Ryder as her father's Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels album was playing the background. Ryder was selected for the role of Mary Corleone in Ojciec chrzestny III (1990), but had to drop out of the role after catching the flu from the strain of doing the films Witaj w domu, Roxy Carmichael (1990) and Syreny (1990) back-to-back. She said she did not want to let everyone down by doing a substandard performance. She later made Wiek niewinności (1993), which was directed by Martin Scorsese, whom she believes to be "the best director in the world".
Movies
The solitary life of an artificial man - who was incompletely constructed and has scissors for hands - is upended when he is taken in by a suburban family.
Two centuries after her death, a powerful human/alien hybrid clone of Ellen Ripley aids a crew of space pirates in stopping the aliens from reaching Earth.
The centuries old vampire Count Dracula comes to England to seduce his barrister Jonathan Harker's fiancée Mina Murray and inflict havoc in the foreign land.
A directionless teenager, Susanna, is rushed to Claymoore, a mental institution, after a supposed suicide attempt. There, she befriends a group of troubled women who deeply influence her life.
A sweet-natured, small-town guy inherits a controlling stake in a media conglomerate and begins to do business his way.
A former DEA agent moves his family to a quiet town, where he soon tangles with a local meth druglord.
When a boy's beloved dog passes away suddenly, he attempts to bring the animal back to life through a powerful science experiment.
At Westerburg High where cliques rule, jocks dominate and all the popular girls are named Heather, it's going to take a Veronica and mysterious new kid to give teen angst a body count.
An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.
A tale of nineteenth-century New York high society in which a young lawyer falls in love with a woman separated from her husband, while he is engaged to the woman's cousin.
An anthology of 5 different cab drivers in 5 American and European cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.
The March sisters live and grow in post-Civil War America.
A man discovers that his best friend's wife is having an affair.
A documentary filmmaker and her fellow Generation X graduates face life after college, looking for work and love in Houston.
A Salem resident attempts to frame her ex-lover's wife for being a witch in the middle of the 1692 witchcraft trials.
An unconventional single mother relocates with her two daughters to a small Massachusetts town in 1963, where a number of events and relationships both challenge and strengthen their familial bonds.
The story of two miserable and unpleasant wedding guests, Lindsay and Frank, who develop a mutual affection despite themselves.
Romantic drama about an aging playboy who falls for a sweet, but terminally ill, young woman.
In 1961, famed social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of radical behavior experiments that tested ordinary humans' willingness to obey authority.
The life and career of wildly controversial rock 'n' roll star Jerry Lee Lewis.