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Winona Ryder (born Winona Laura Horowitz) is an
United States|American actor|actress born on
October 29, 1971 in Winona, Minnesota to Michael
and Cindy Horowitz. Cindy Horowitz (nee 'Palmer')
was English while Michael Horowitz was of Russian
and Romanian Jewish descent.  His family's
original name had been 'Tomchin' but they had been
wrongly assigned the name 'Horowitz' by U.S.
immigration officials at Ellis Island.  

Winona Ryder was named after the town in Minnesota
where she was born. She has a younger brother Yuri
(named after Yuri Gagarin), an older half-brother
Jubal and an older half-sister Sunyata.  Notable
family friends included her Godparent|godfather
Timothy Leary and Beat generation|Beat poet Allen
Ginsberg. 

==Childhood==
When she was seven years old she and her family
resided at a Intentional community|commune in Elk,
California, where they lived with seven other
families on a 300-acre (1.2 km²) plot of
land. As the area had no electricity Ryder took to
reading, particularly appreciating the novel
Catcher in the Rye. Her mother did however show
her some films on a screen in the barn, which
perhaps lead her to develop an interest in what
would later make up her career. At age 10 the
family moved again to Petaluma,
California|Petaluma, California. She was harassed
her first week of junior high school there when a
group of bullies mistook her for a feminine,
scrawny boy.  This led her to be schooled at home
that year, but she also spent time attending the
American Conservatory Theater in nearby San
Francisco, California|San Francisco, where she
started taking acting lessons.

==Film career==
In 1985 she sent a video audition to appear in the
film Desert Bloom, but was rejected.
However, David Seltzer, a writer and director,
soon noticed her and cast her for his 1986 in
film|1986 film Lucas (movie)|Lucas for a role of
an teenage outcast, falling in love, but ignored,
by the main character.
When asked how she wanted her name to appear in
the credits, she suggested Ryder as a Mitch Ryder
album of her father's played in the background.
Her next movie was Square Dance (1987 in
film|1987) (called "a remarkable debut" by The Los
Angeles Times), where her teenage character
creates a bridge between two alien worlds/plot
devices - a traditional farm in the middle of
nowhere and a Big City.
Her role concentrates on a profound question: how
much of our behaviour perceived by the outside
world is inherent to us and how much comes from
acting the social role under pressure of the
society, in a way that society considers "proper"
and ethics|ethical implications coming from this
classical conflict of interest, which she later
had a chance to make perfect in The Age of
Innocence.
Her breakthrough film is generally considered to
be Tim Burton's 1988 in film|1988 film
Beetlejuice, in which she played a goth teenager
named Lydia suffering from depression induced by
extreme consumeric worldview her parents
represent, who comes to live in a haunted house
(the haunting performed by Geena Davis, Alec
Baldwin and Michael Keaton).
She is the only human being among the players able
to feel strong empathy and sympathy toward the
ghosts and their drama of being captured in
between the world of the living and the
netherworld|afterworld.
The movie was a commercial and media success.
She went on to play a primary role in another
Burton project, the 1990 in film|1990 film Edward
Scissorhands, alongside her then-boyfriend Johnny
Depp.
It is the only movie of her career in which one
can admire her blond hair - her natural color,
which she has dyed dark since childhood.

In 1989 in film|1989 she starred in a now cult
movie - Heathers, which her agent thought was bad
for her career.
Her character is opposed to violence as a way to
resolve conflicts and is able to express her views
by stopping major violent accident from happening.
Also, again she struggles forced to choose between
the will of mad society and her own heart - she
wins that battle in a pat by choosing neither and
playing all parties against themselves, so she can
be left alone to decide about her life.
In the same year she did Great Balls of Fire,
playing the thirteen-year-old bride of Jerry Lee
Lewis.
She withdrew from her role in Francis Ford
Coppola's The Godfather, Part III, after feeling
exhausted from recent roles — she finished
two somewhat related movies Mermaids (with Cher
(entertainer)|Cher, Christina Ricci, Bob Hoskins
and Michael Schoeffling) and Welcome Home, Roxy
Carmichel (with Jeff Daniels (actor)|Jeff
Daniels), both shot in 1990 in film|1990 and both
stressing the motive of the ability of our own
personal narrative changing our Real Life.

In 1991 in film|1991 she played a taxi driver who
wants to become a mechanic (Night on Earth (1991
film)|Night on Earth), against the forced
repertoire of roles selected for women by gender
prejudices.

In 1992 in film|1992 she starred and gave an
outstanding performance in the double role of Mina
Harker and princess Elisabeta, in Bram Stoker's
Dracula.

The next year she appeared in The Age of Innocence
(alongside Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel
Day-Lewis), a film based on a novel by Edith
Wharton and helmed by director Martin Scorsese,
whom Ryder considers the best director.
She plays a young woman, captured in plots within
plots within plots of the society where every
sentence pronounced has at least three different
meanings.
The constant merciless war of countless conspiring
factions is mirrored in the scenery, full of
symbols and ciphered messages passed by secret
agents of love trying to tell truth while avoiding
the insane rage of organised madness around them.
Her role in this movie won her a Golden Globe
Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as an
Academy Award nomination.

Next, she did The House of the Spirits (1993 in
film|1993).

Next she starred in How to Make an American Quilt
(1995 in film|1995) - again the character is
forced to choose between a will of the "quilting
bee" and her desires, followed by Boys
(movie)|Boys, (1996 in film|1996), again fighting
for her self (psychology)|self against the whole
world, with love as her only true friend and
guide.
The movie featured also the motive of confusion
between subjective and objective interpretations
of perceived reality, later exploited in Lost
Souls (movie)|Lost Souls.
She received yet another nomination in 1994 in
film|1994 with Little Women (1994 movie)|Little
Women, based on the classic novel of the same
name.

In the same year she starred in a cult movie,
coined by the press "portrait of Generation X" -
Reality Bites.
Her character had to choose between the voice of
reason and the voice of heart - two potential
mates - a self-centered, half-educated, lacking
empathy but successful as a producer in the
business of garbage media played by Ben Stiller
and a free-spirited, caring but also self-centered
leader of a alternative band, permanently kicking
himself out of his extremely boring jobs he has to
take to earn for a living, played  by Ethan Hawke.
She is at the same time struggling with life in a
world obsessed about money and brainwashing
commercials, discarding anyone more interested in
the deeds of intellect and spirit.

In 1996 in film|1996 she starred in Al Pacino's
debut as a director, Looking for Richard and The
Crucible (movie)|The Crucible (1996 in film|1996),
a movie concerning famous mass executions of
innocent people in Salem triggered by
anti-witchcraft hysteria of its Puritan
population.
The movie was praised by critics but failed to be
a commercial success.

Soon afterward she accepted a role in the 1997 in
film|1997 film Alien: Resurrection.
Having grown up on the Alien (movie)|Alien
franchise, she signed before having even read a
script.

Celebrity (movie)|Celebrity (1998 in film|1998),
her next work, contains an episode with a pun
toward the character from the Night on Earth (1991
film)|Night on Earth - an alternative path of
life.

In 1999 in film|1999 she acted in and served as
executive producer for Girl, Interrupted, based on
the autobiography of Susanna Kaysen.
Ryder was deeply attached emotionally to that
movie, considering it her "child of the heart";
she played the Kaysen character, who had a
borderline personality disorder and was rather
calm and subdued.   In contrast, the supporting
role performed by Angelina Jolie of a psychopath
full of sexual energy and dramatic episodes, stole
the attention of the public and the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|Academy.

She went on to portray the fragile, beautiful,
young, talented and doomed love interest of
Richard Gere's character in the 2000 in film|2000
romance Autumn in New York.

In the same year she played a sister (nun) of the
secret society loosely connected to Catholic
Church determined to prevent Armageddon - Lost
Souls (movie)|Lost Souls.
The character struggles between the world
(including the Church) laughing at supernatural,
her own beliefs based on personal experience and
uncertainty between seemingly obvious empirical
evidence and her doubts in her own sanity and
ability to reason or even perceive correctly.
The movie was not a success, lost in a myriad of
others exploiting the Millennium FUD.

In 2002 in film|2002 Ryder appeared in two films -
a romantic comedy Mr. Deeds (alongside Adam
Sandler), where she plays a cynical reporter for
an unscrupulous television program, and an
episodic role in S1m0ne, where she portrays an
extravagant star, who is replaced by a computer
simulated actress due to secret workings of a
director, starred by Al Pacino.

==Shoplifting incident==

On December 12, 2001, Winona Ryder was arrested
for shoplifting thousands of dollars worth of
designer clothes and accessories at Saks Fifth
Avenue department store in Beverly Hills,
California. 

During the trial, she was also accused of using
drugs without valid prescriptions, according to a
probation report which can be found on The smoking
gun site, she had up to 37 prescriptions filled by
20 doctors, using 6 different aliases, in a
three-year period. 

L.A. District Attorney Stephen Cooley set up a
team of eight prosecutors and seized the
opportunity to sue the actress aggressively and
filed four felony charges against her in what was
described by The Guardian (UK) as a show-trial
since the prosecution demanded the trial be
televised.

Winona hired noted defense attorney Mark Geragos
and mounted her defense to fight the charges.
Negotiations for a plea-bargain failed at the end
of summer 2002. As noted by Joel Mowbray from the
National Review, the accusation was not ready to
offer the actress what was given to 5000 other
defendants in similar cases, an open door to a
no-contest plea on misdemeanor charges. 

The defense produced the official documents for
the drugs the police found in her purse and the
prosecution consequently dropped the charge.
Winona was eventually convicted of grand theft and
vandalism but the jury acquitted her on the third
felony charge (burglary). On 6 December, 2002 she
was sentenced to 480 hours of community service,
three years' suspended imprisonment, $3700 in
fines, and $6355 in restitution to Saks. Winona
was also ordered to attend psychological and drug
counselling. At the time of sentencing, Superior
Court Judge Elden Fox reprimanded her: "You have
refused to accept personal responsibility" he told
her, "If you steal again, you will go to jail.
Understand that?". "Yes, Your Honor, I do," she
replied. However, during subsequent probation
hearings, Justice Fox praised the actress for her
conduct and progress.

The charges were later attenuated and the felonies
reduced to misdemeanors on June 18, 2004.

== Notable romances ==

Ryder has dated actors Matt Damon, Daniel
Day-Lewis, Johnny Depp, David Duchovny, Jimmy
Fallon, Chris Noth,and Christian Slater, as well
as musicians Ryan Adams, Evan Dando, Adam Duritz,
David Grohl, Page Hamilton, Beck Hansen, Stephan
Jenkins, Jay Kay, Rhett Miller, Conor Oberst,
David Pirner, Jack White, and Pete Yorn.

==Filmography==
*Lucas (movie)|Lucas (1986)
*Square Dance (1987)
*Beetlejuice (1988)
*1969 (1988)
*Heathers (1989)
*Great Balls of Fire! (1989)
*Welcome Home, Roxy Charmichael (1990)
*Edward Scissorhands (1990)
*Mermaids (1990)
*Night on Earth (1991 film)|Night on Earth (1991)
*Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
*The Age of Innocence (1993)
*The House of Spirits (1993)
*Reality Bites (1994)
*Little Women (1994 movie)|Little Women (1994)
*How to Make an American Quilt (1995)
*Boys (1996)
*Looking for Richard (1996)
*The Crucible (1996)
*Alien: Resurrection (1997)
*Celebrity (1998)
*Girl, Interrupted (1999)
*Autumn in New York (2000)
*Lost Souls (movie)|Lost Souls (2000)
*Zoolander (2001) (Cameo)
*Mr. Deeds (2002)
*S1m0ne (2002)
*The Day My God Died (2003) (documentary)
(narrator)
*The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004)
*Darwin Awards (2005) (currently in
post-production)
*Children of the Revolution: Tune Back In
(documentary) (currently in post-production)
*Mary Warner (2005) (currently in pre-production)
*A Scanner Darkly (2006) (currently in
post-production)

==External links==
* imdb name|id=0000213|name=Winona Ryder
* http://andgodcreatednoni.com ...And God Created
Noni - an Icon Shrine site.
* http://winonaryder.proboards7.com/ ... The
Winona Ryder Film Page - a meeting place
*
http://www.westlord.com/winonaryder/eng-home.html
Winona Ryder Website at WestLord
*
http://www.askmen.com/women/actress/59b_winona_ryd
er.html Winona Ryder Page at Askmen.com
* http://www.courttv.com/trials/ryder/ Shoplifting
trial
*
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/24/entertai
nment/main526831.shtml Report on Ryder's
sentencing and conversation with the judge