biography

Born Winona Laura Horowitz, on October 29th, 1971 and named after the town in which she was born in, Winona, Minnesota. She is the daughter of communal hippies and the goddaughter of LSD guru Timothy Leary, and grew up on a commune in Northern California. Her family moved to Petaluma when she was 10. After suffering regular abuse from her classmates, who targeted her for her unconventional, androgynous appearance, she was home-schooled.

At the age of 11 she was enrolled in the prestigious American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. It was while performing onstage at the Conservatory that she began to concentrate on a film career. She auditioned for the part of John Voight's daughter in "Desert Bloom." Although she didn't get the part, she did get representation in the form of Triad Artists after they viewed her tape and she landed an agent. Triad lined her up for her debut role in "Lucas."

Finding popularity with her performance as the suicidal teen who had more in common with the nutty ghosts living in her attic than with her yuppie parents in the black comedy "BeetleJuice," Winona quickly became one of the most steadily employed actresses in Hollywood.

She continued to corner the alienated/confused teen market with a sting of off-beat films including, the cult classic "Heathers," "Great Balls of Fire," "Edward Scissorhands," and "Mermaids." In the early 1990's, Winona began to branch out from the teen roles towards roles that required more maturity. After 1991's "Night on Earth," she starred in Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of "Dracula." She went on to star as Antonio Banderas' lover in "The House of the Spirits."

In 1993, Ryder was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Daniel Day-Lewis' picture perfect wife in "The Age of Innocence." Winona began to be taken more seriously as an actress who was capable of playing more mature roles. She was again nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Jo March in "Little Women." That same year she took on a completely different type of role in "Reality Bites" and in 1995's "How to make an American Quilt."

In 1996, Winona again shared the screen with Daniel Day-Lewis in "The Crucible." She then was paired with Sigourney Weaver in the highly anticipated and criticized "Alien Resurrection." Ryder then portrayed the waifish object of Kenneth Branagh's affections in the Woody Allen film "Celebrity."

She managed to escape much of the criticism surrounding both these films, and in 1999 she teamed with Angelina Joli in the sleeper hit of the year "Girl, Interrupted," where she played a mental institution inmate. She also had a leading role in the supernatural thriller "Lost Souls" that same year.

Winona says of her success "I spent a couple of years just at this war with myself, with my popularity, and people looking at me. I felt really vulnerable. I could never understand why. I felt like, if I complained about it, then I was being a brat; like I should never complain because I'm so lucky and I have money and other people don't, all this stuff. But if I tried to enjoy it, then I was conceited. There was no way to win."