Mary Debra Winger was born May 16, 1955 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Ruth
(Felder), an office manager, and Robert Jack Winger, a meat packer. She is from a Jewish
family (originally from Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire). Her
maternal grandparents called her Mary, while her parents called her
Debra (her father named her Debra after his favorite actress,
Debra Paget). The
family moved to California when Debra was five. She fell in love with
acting in high school but kept it a secret from her family. She was a
precocious teenager, having graduated high school at an early age of
15. She enrolled in college, majoring in criminology. She worked
part-time in the local amusement park when she got thrown from a truck
and suffered serious injuries and went temporarily blind for several
months. She was in the hospital when she vowed to pursue her passion
for acting.
After she recovered, she abandoned college and studied acting. Like any
struggling actor, she did commercials and guest-starred on 70s TV shows
like
Task Force: Part I (1976)
and Wonder Woman (1975), where
she performed as Diana's little sister,
Wonder Girl. She also made her feature film debut in the embarrassing
soft-core porn film,
Slumber Party '57 (1976).
(Years later on
Inside the Actors Studio (1994),
host James Lipton asked her to name her
first film, and she refused to answer him.) Her next two films,
Wer geht denn noch zur Uni? (1979) and
Gottseidank, es ist Freitag (1978),
did absolutely nothing for her career. When
Sissy Spacek said no to playing the
character Sissy in
Urban Cowboy (1980), almost every
young actress in Hollywood pursued the role. Debra won the role over a
then-unknown Michelle Pfeiffer and
gave a star-making performance as
John Travolta's wife. Her handling
of the mechanical bull made her a new kind of sex symbol. She would
always remain grateful to her director
James Bridges for threatening to
quit the film if the studio didn't cast her. However, she followed it
up with a flop, Die Straße der Ölsardinen (1982).
But, she became part of one of the top-grossing films of all time by
providing her deep, throaty voice to the title character of
E.T. - Der Außerirdische (1982) as a favor to the film's director Steven Spielberg (Note: IMDB cast list for E.T. indicates Pat Welsh as the voice for that character.). She also appeared in the film for a few seconds in the Halloween scene, where she is wearing a zombie mask and carrying a poodle.
She received her first Academy Award nomination as Best Actress
for the huge hit,
Ein Offizier und Gentleman (1982),
where her on-screen love scenes with
Richard Gere became just as legendary as
her off-screen fights with him and with director
Taylor Hackford.
Debra's reputation as a great talent, as well as her reputation as a
difficult actress grew with her next film,
Zeit der Zärtlichkeit (1983),
which not only earned her a second Oscar nomination as Best Actress but
also won the Best Picture as well. She also earned the Best Actress
Award from the National Society of Film Critics. Debra was at the top
of her game and was the most sought-after actress in Hollywood, but she
turned down quality roles and lucrative offers for three years. Some
speculated that the reason was her romantic involvement with
Bob Kerrey, then-governor of Nebraska, while
others have stated it was her back problems. Whatever her reasons were,
her career lost its heat. Her long-delayed film
Mike's Murder (1984), reuniting her
with her "Urban Cowboy" director James Bridges, didn't help matters
either when it became a critical and financial flop. Debra tried to
revive her career by starring in the big-budget comedy
Staatsanwälte küsst man nicht (1986), but she
disliked the film so much that she publicly stated that the director,
Ivan Reitman, was one of the two worst
directors she worked with, the other director being
Taylor Hackford
(Ein Offizier und Gentleman (1982)).
She also walked out on her agency, CAA, but returned several years
later.
Her personal life made headlines when she left Bob Kerrey and eloped
with Oscar-winning actor Timothy Hutton
in 1986. In 1987, she gave birth to their son,
Noah Hutton. She also starred in
Die schwarze Witwe (1987), which wasn't a
hit, and acted alongside Hutton as a male angel in
Made in Heaven (1987) which
flopped. She followed that up by starring in another flop,
Verraten (1988), which featured a
fleeting cameo by Hutton. She separated from Hutton in 1988 and they
divorced in 1990, at which time she had two more bombs,
Everybody Wins - Ein schmutziges Spiel (1990) and
Himmel über der Wüste (1990).
However, she relished the experience on
Himmel über der Wüste (1990) so
much that she stayed in the Sahara desert long after filming wrapped.
She came back to US and filmed a
Steve Martin vehicle,
Der Schein-Heilige (1992), which did
nothing for her career. But, she found love on the set of her next
film, Die Sache mit dem Feuer (1993) when she
co-starred opposite Arliss Howard,
who became her next husband. The film flopped but their marriage
lasted. She received good notices for
Eine gefährliche Frau (1993), but
it was Shadowlands - Ein Geschenk des Augenblicks (1993) which
finally brought her renewed respectability and her third Academy Award
nomination as Best Actress. She followed that up with a forgettable
comedy, Vergiß Paris (1995). Then, she signed to do "Divine Rapture" with Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp in a small village in Ireland, but two weeks into filming, financing fell apart, and the film was never completed. Winger was never paid for her work, and neither were the poor villagers, and Winger said she was devastated for them. Now 40,
Debra felt that there were no good roles for her and she concentrated
on motherhood by having a second son, Babe Howard, in 1997. Her
six-year absence from films inspired a documentary by
Rosanna Arquette titled
Searching for Debra Winger (2002),
which is about sexism and ageism in Hollywood. In 2001, she returned to
acting in her husband's film,
Big Bad Love (2001), which she also
co-produced. It renewed her love for acting, and she has ventured out
into television as well by earning her first Emmy nomination as Best
Actress for Dawn Anna (2005),
directed by her husband. In 2008, she wrote a well-written book, based
on her personal recollections, titled "Undiscovered". And she followed
that up by winning rave reviews as
Anne Hathaway's mother in
Jonathan Demme's
Rachels Hochzeit (2008). However, it wasn't enough to reignite her feature film career, so she ventured towards television in 2010 with a guest-starring role on "Law and Order" titled Boy on Fire (2010), to a seven-episode stint on In Treatment: Der Therapeut (2008), to a two-part miniseries The Red Tent (2014), to a regular role on The Ranch (2016) . Her television exposure reignited her feature film career, and she was cast in her first romantic lead in 22 years in The Lovers (2017). And she had also mellowed with age, presenting an award to Richard Gere in 2011 and saying kind things about director Taylor Hackford in 2017, after having fought with both of them during Ein Offizier und Gentleman (1982). Nobody can deny that Debra Winger is one of the best American actresses
ever.
