How did a beautiful young movie star find herself in the starring role of alleged shoplifter? Our character study of the intriguing actress provides a few answers...
The stylist for one of Winona Ryder's first photo shoots nearly 20 years ago knew that Ryder would someday be famous. "She was just really focused," Abby Minot says about the girl posing for head shots, then a junior high school student. "She had this vision. You could just tell she was going places."
Ryder
did go places, appearing to vault effortlessly from her days as the
child of hippie parents in Petaluma, California, to enjoying what was,
for a while, one of the most admired careers in Hollywood, complete
with two Oscar nominations (1993's The Age of Innocence and
1994's Little Women) and many critically acclaimed films (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, How to Make an American Quilt).
But one day last month, Ryder, 30, was somewhere people like Minot never expected her to be: in the 39th-floor Los Angeles office of her high-powered defense attorney, Mark Geragos, plotting strategy for a criminal case against her. On December 12, 2001, Ryder was arrested for allegedly shoplifting about $4,760 worth of items from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. On February 5, she pleaded not guilty to felony charges of grand theft, burglary and vandalism. A Saks security guard testified at Ryder's preliminary hearing in June that she had witnessed the actress cut tags off of merchandise. Ryder was accused of stealing 17 items, including two pairs of Donna Karan socks, two pairs of Calvin Klein socks, a $750 YSL blouse, two designer handbags, three beaded purses and two Eric Javits hats. She was also charged with possession of the painkiller Oxycodone without a prescription. If convicted of the charges, Ryder could face more than three years in prison. At press time, there was a chance the case would settle out of court.
How did an actress who earns up to $5 million per picture, lives in a $3 million Beverly Hills home, drives a black Mercedes and dates famous actors and rock stars find herself in this mess? And furthermore, what career verdict will be handed down by the jury of her Hollywood peers?
"It's a nightmare," a source close to Ryder said in July. "We're shocked that it's gone on so long. We're not talking about a heinous crime here."
Indeed, the air of frivolity surrounding the case last spring — when Ryder herself posed in a FREE WINONA T-shirt for the cover of W magazine and made light of her arrest when she hosted Saturday Night Live in May — waned by summer. Although her most recent film, Mr. Deeds, in which she costarred with Adam Sandler, did well at the box office, Ryder was not featured on the movie's posters. She has a cameo in the coming movie Simone, which stars Al Pacino as a director who creates a computer-generated actress, but she has not signed on for any new films. Late last month, a satirical play called My Name Is Winona and I'm a Shoplifter opened at a West Hollywood playhouse. The play, which runs through August, stars actor Rex Lee in drag as Winona.
Tom Rothman, chairman of 20th Century Fox, is one of the few in Hollywood who will go on the record in support of Ryder. "People sense that this is a woman who's being put through the wringer by publicity-hungry prosecutors," Rothman said in July. The two got to know each other when Ryder costarred in two 20th Century Fox movies, 1996's The Crucible and 1997's Alien: Resurrection. "It's an outrage. But I truly believe this will all go away. She will continue her career. I told her she has too much talent and she's too good a person."
Like
most celebrities, Ryder has had various headline-making
moments. She abruptly dropped out of The Godfather Part III in
1990 as well as last year's Lily and the Secret Painting, both
times reportedly due to illness. (Ryder has described herself as a
chronic insomniac and, in fact, briefly checked herself into the
psychiatric ward of a hospital at age 20.) She is notorious for her
high-profile romances and intense breakups with the likes of Johnny
Depp, Soul Asylum lead singer Dave Pirner, Matt
Damon and, most recently, rising pop star Pete Yorn.
"You're no one in music," Courtney Love once famously
said, "until you have a feud with me or sleep with Winona."
Born Winona Laura Horowitz in Winona, Minnesota, Ryder — who is known to friends and family as "Noni" — was raised by hippie parents Michael Horowitz, 63, and Cindy Palmer, 61, who did not marry until Ryder was 11. (Ryder has a sister and brother, Sunyata, 35, and Jubal, 33, from her mother's first marriage, and a brother, Uri, 26).
Her early childhood was spent on a commune called Rainbow near Mendocino, California, before the family moved to Petaluma when Ryder was 8. During her first week of school there, Ryder was bullied by kids who mistook her for a gay boy. Her parents agreed to homeschool her, and shortly after she enrolled in the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. She was spotted by an agent while performing on stage and made her film debut in 1986's Lucas.
"Her parents were behind her and supporting her even though they were broke and didn't care about money," says Minot, the stylist at her early photo shoot. "Their attitude was, she's got this vision and this dream, and we want to make this happen for her. It was a hippie idea."
Ryder had her first brush with the law at age 12, when she was placed under citizen's arrest for shoplifting a comic book. The police brought her back home, and "my parents tried to beat them up," she once said.
Her parents have never abandoned their political activism. Ryder's father, considered an expert in drug literature, was once an archivist for LSD guru Timothy Leary. In 1971, when Leary was on the lam from the FBI, hiding in Switzerland after escaping from the prison where he was serving time on drug charges, Horowitz went to see him. The two took a hit of acid and went skiing. At one point during the day, Horowitz — who would later be visited by FBI agents himself because of his relationship with Leary — took out a photograph of his newborn daughter, Winona, and asked Leary to be her godfather. Leary agreed.
Today, Horowitz runs Flashback Books, a store in Tiburon, California, that specializes in drug-related titles. Sample books for sale include Hippie Sex, Groupies and other Girls, The Sexual Power of Marijuana and How to Get Balled in Berkeley. He and his wife are the directors of the Fitz Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library, the largest collection of psychoactive drug books and related materials in the world. In 1998, Ryder's mother moved yippie Abbie Hoffman's dying wife, Anita, into the San Francisco apartment Ryder bought for her mom so Anita could live out her last days there.
"Her parents were very committed and artistic," recalls John Schaeffer, president of the eco-friendly company Real Goods, who lived on the electricity-free Rainbow commune with the Horowitzes and six to 10 other families. "We built our own houses. It was about living lightly on the planet and challenging local political authority. Noni lived in a home nicknamed the 'Mansion.' Noni did a lot of acting and dress-up. They were a great family."
To read more about Winona Ryder's upbringing and her legal battle, pick up this week's isse of TV Guide on newsstands.
Quelle: TV Guide Online