She was born Winona Horowitz in Minnesota, in the town of Winona, from which she was named after. Her siblings were not so lucky, they are named Yuri, Sunyata and Jubal, perfectly ordinary names (if you live in Asia). Her parents were free-lovin', counter-culture types who wanted to change the world and make it better. Winona had what most would call an 'unconventional' childhood. Protests against Agent Orange were the family events, weekend and camping trips. Her godfather was the late L.S.D. guru Timothy Leary (surprise, surprise), in fact Winona's father (Michael), formerly served as as an archivist for Leary and ran a bookstore called 'Flashback Books' (need I say more?). What about that poet Allen Ginsberg who had rounded out her parents circle of friends. Understandably Winona hastens to explain when asked about her rather nonconformist upbringing, that her parents are politically active intellectuals, and not acid-dropping, Grateful Dëad-dogging clichés. Leary himself summed them up as "hippie intellectuals and psychedelic scholars," a judgment bolstered by the fact that the couple collaborated on a book detailing Aldous Huxley's psychedelic experiences, and then co-authored a book alleging that Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women while dosed up on opium (appreciation for great literature in the highest ;-). Growing up in a house where a high value was placed on reading, Winona's bible became J.D. Salinger's coming- of-age novel, 'The Catcher in the Rye' (which is still her favourite book). The book describes a world view shaped by such parents as hers and an idol of the likes of Holden Caulfield. It makes you wonder why Winona would one day prove herself so adept at playing coming-of-age characters in her early career. The family moved when Winona was 7, to an upscale 300- acre commune somewhere in northern California, in the town of Elk. Where there lived several families and a bunch of horses. The area had no electricity, which left precious little to keep kids entertained. Despite the lack of television, Winona's inspiration came from when Winona's mother screened movies in a make-shift theatre (in an old barn). The classic films that were screened provided Winona with the key to her future. After a year of living in the sticks, the family moved back to the relative civilization of Petaluma, California. During her first week at her new school, Winona, a fresh-off-the-commune tomboy, was jumped by a gang of pubescent thugs who proceeded to trounce her good, they though Ryder was a boy. Years later however she bumped into one of the girlfriends of one of the thugs, and she asked her for her autograph. "Do you remember that 'boy' who was beaten up," Winona asked her. "Oh, that fag?" she replied. Winona even admits that she got a thrill out of revealing to the girl that she was that very same boy, and reports that not only was she completely mortified, but "I did not give her my autograph." Ah! revenge is sweet! The unfortunate thrashing did bring some fortunate results: Ryder recieved a stint of home study, but more importantly, her parents let her enroll in acting classes at the prestigious American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where bullies were few and far between. Despite that, she eventually went back to that school, and in fact graduated with straight A's (or a 4.0 score). Talent scouts eventually spotted her on the A.C.T. stage and had her test for the role of Jon Voight's daughter in Desert Bloom. Ultimately, she didn't get the part, but her tape was impressive enough to gain her representation by Triad Artists, who set her up with a role as a poetry-loving teen in Lucas (1986). When the credits rolled, Winona Horowitz was no more, she was now officially Winona Ryder, her new surname was inspired by a Mitch Ryder album belonging to her father. Her memorable performance in the generally unmemorable film led in turn to a role as, what else?!?!?, a teen, in the treacly and little-heeded Square Dance (1987). Her next role as an anti-war activist in the critically reviled 1969 was certainly nothing to write Petaluma about either. Not the best of situations for a budding actress, or me, since I may never get a copy of the video release. Ryder's career tide finally turned for the better with Tim Burton's smash hit Beetlejuice (1988) (which launched both careers), in which she played a death-courting, black-garbed teen named Lydia, who understandably has more in common with the ghosts in the attic (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) than with her own truly insufferable parents. She again plumbed the darker teenage impulses in the black-as-coal comedy Heathers (1989) which is to date, the favorite film of her prodigious career--which had her conspiring with a preternaturally sardonic Christian Slater to murdr members of high school cliques and then make the murders appear to be accidents. That same year, she turned in a great performance (in a not-so-great movie) as the thirteen-year-old bride and first cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis, in Great Balls of Fire! Her next few films flopped as well, but one thing was becoming certain: Winona had the warped teen thang pretty well nailed. For Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands, she donned an ill-conceived blonde wig to play a more conventional teen, a cheerleader no less, swept up in an unconventional Beauty-and-the-Beast attraction with a bizarre creature played winningly by Ryder's then-fiancé, Johnny Depp (who had her name tattoed on his bicep). While the film certainly was the most beneficial outing of her career up to that point, the fact remained that Ryder was fed up with playing a teenager, forever poised tremulously on the cusp of maturity. Winona says the first time she was proud of her acting was in "The Age of Innocence", but of all her films, "Heathers" remains her favorite (which makes you wonder ...), she has pestered "Heathers" scribe Dan Waters to write a sequel for years. Independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch helped bridge the generation gap somewhat by writing a special part for Ryder in his anthology Night on Earth, in which she played an L.A. cabbie who dreams of becoming a mechanic, when her plans take an intresting turn. On the maturity scale, the film was a baby step, to be sure. Ryder would have made a far greater stride in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Part III, but she was forced to withdraw from the production due to a respiratory infection brought on by exhaustion from working non-stop on her films. Her departure from the project led to a particularly unfortunate casting choice of the director's daughter Sofia, an inexperienced and ultimately unsuitable as a replacement (as unfair as that sounds). Luckily, Ryder and Coppola's dealings were far from completed. After signing with Creative Artists Agency (CAA), where she had the foresight to reserve the right to review all scripts submitted to the agency, Ryder latched onto a promising screenplay by Jim Hart based on Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. She approached Coppola with the script, and the rest is movie history. Coppola's decadent and Bram Stoker's Dracula provided Ryder with the break she had been looking for: finally, for the first time in her career, she was playing a mature woman, and what's more, the woman in question was the object of the immortal count's blood-soaked desire. Ryder also managed a fairly convincing British accent (we wish the same could be said for co-star Keanu Reeves) but not everyone was convinced that she pulled the role off. However if critics were divided on the ultimate effectiveness of Ryder's performance in Dracula, they were in absolute agreement over her Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe winning supporting turn as May Welland in The Age of Innocence, a film adapted from Edith Wharton's merciless portrait of 19th -century New York aristocracy. In 1994, Ryder stepped out of her crinolines to achieve iconic status as the quintessential Gen-Xer in Stiller's Reality Bites. She then held her own in a cream-of-the- crop cast in the butchered adaptation of Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits (which starred Irons, Close, Banderas and Streep, and then capped off the year with an Oscar-nominated (this time in the Best contest) performance as Jo March in Little Women. Ryder dedicated the latter film to Polly Klaas. The reason for this dedication is a tragic story. Polly Klaas was a little child from Winona's home town of Petaluma who was kidnapped. Winona heard of this and was moved by the situation, in fact Winona had offered a $200,000 reward for information leading to the attacker. Tragically, Polly was found later murdered. As a result, The Polly Klaas Foundation was established, a non-profit organization dedicated to the search for missing children everywhere, was formed by Polly's father, Marc Klaas, and Bill Rhodes, a prominent figure in the Petaluma community. Winona is herself one of the Foundation's Board of Directors. The book "Little Women" was Polly's favorite, Winona used her influence to get the film made and dedicated to Polly. Not the most happy dedication made in a movie, but one that is ultimately the most treasured. With the delicate, ethereal beauty, the expressive looks, and an impressive range, Ryder has already proven herself to be one of the most luminous and successful interpreters of the 19th century. But considering her card-carrying Generation-X status, her well-publicized love history, and her equal virtuosity at playing latter- day leads (as evidenced in 1995's How To Make an American Quilt), Ryder is undoubtedly very present in the erm...present. In 1996, she rounded out the star-studded cast of Al Pacino's Looking for Richard, playing Lady Anne in Al Pacino's documentary about performing William Shakespeare's Richard III; and she reunited with her Age of Innocence co-star and ex-flame Daniel Day-Lewis in an adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Ryder next tested the limits of time, space, and believability, with Alien Resurrection, in which she aids Sigourney Weaver's reanimated Ripley in battling farm-fresh aliens. And how's this for timelessness: Ryder is set to play the role of Luke Skywalker's mother in the first film in the long-awaited follow-up trilogy to Star Wars; the movie is scheduled to hit theaters sometime in 1999. Currently however she has replaced Drew Barrymore's role in Celebrity, aka. the Woody Allen Fall Project. She had originally back out when first approached because she had thought she had a previous engagment with a film about the life and murder of Irish journalist Veronica Guerin in which she would have played the title role, but script revisions and numerous delays have left Ryder free. This movie is also to star Kenneth Brannagh and Leonardo DiCaprio. In the future, aside from the role in Star Wars, she is still not finished with science-fiction. She is also set to star in the final two Alien flicks with Sigourney Weaver, this will mark the end of the Alien saga (boo-hoo!)