One of the main movie stars of the 1990s, Winona Ryder, turns 50. In the career of an American actress, there was a place for a rapid take-off, thanks to which it became a symbol of the last decade of the twentieth century, and a deafening fall, which took her out of the big cinema for several years. Time Out congratulates Winona Ryder on her anniversary and tells 10 facts from her colorful life.
Winona was named after the city
The future actress was born on October 29, 1971 in Olmsted County, Minnesota. Parents gave their daughter an unusual name - Winona Laura Horowitz. She owes her first name to the neighboring small town of Winona, in which about 20 thousand people lived, and the middle one, Laura, the girl received in honor of the wife of the writer Aldous Huxley, author of the novel Brave New World. Winona's father was friends with her for a long time.
Horowitz changed her last name much later, after her film debut in the film Lucas (1986), Winona took the pseudonym Ryder in honor of the rock singer Mitch Ryder, her father's favorite performer.
Ryder has Jewish roots and brother Yuri
Winona's father, Michael Horowitz, was a descendant of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire and Romania. The actress's grandfather moved to America from Minsk, and her grandmother from the small Romanian town of Botosani. Winona's parents devoted their entire lives to writing: her father was an editor and owner of an archive of psychedelic literature, her mother was also engaged in literary activity and was a Buddhist.
This explains the special circle of acquaintances of the Horowitz family: the poets of the beat generation Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as the writer, researcher of psychedelic drugs and at the same time the godfather of Winona Timothy Leary, often came to their house.
When the girl was five years old, a baby was born in the family. The brother was named Yuri, in honor of the cosmonaut Gagarin. In addition to him, Winona has an older half-brother and sister from her mother's first marriage.
As a child, Winona often changed her place of residence.
When the girl was seven years old, the family moved to the town of Elk in Northern California and settled in the agricultural commune "Rainbow". Together with them, seven more families lived there, there was no electricity and television on the site, but there were a lot of livestock. However, Winona was not at all attracted to agriculture, so the girl became interested in reading. According to the actress, as a child, her favorite book was the novel by Jerome Salinger "The Catcher in the Rye".
Realizing that life in the commune does not allow children to develop fully, the father moved the family to the city of Petaluma. There Winona was enrolled in school, but she did not attend it for long. On one of the first days, Ryder was beaten by local teenagers who mistook her for a boy. As a child, she really was a kid: she wore a short haircut and preferred men's clothing, in particular, the Salvation Army suits.
After this incident, the parents transferred Winona to home schooling for a year and enrolled her in acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. After some time, Ryder returned to Petalum High School and graduated with honors.
The actress got her first role at the age of 14
Attending acting courses in San Francisco bore fruit - at the age of 13, Winona first took part in screen tests. In early 1985 she was one of the main contenders for a small role in the film "Desert Flower", but the dialogue she chose for the casting from "Frannie and Zooey" Salinger did not convince the creators, and the role was given to actress Annabeth Gish.
However, Winona did not become sad and continued to work hard. In the same year, she successfully auditioned for the film Lucas, directed by David Zeltser, about a boy in love with a cheerleader.
Winona Ryder's star lit up after working with Tim Burton
