Inside Winona Ryder’s wild life – commune childhood, Johnny Depp fling, drugs and theft

Three decades ago Winona Ryder was dominating Hollywood, becoming one of the biggest movie stars of the 80s and 90s.

The actress, who turns 52 today (October 29) was a familiar face on the red carpet, where she was often joined by fellow A-lister boyfriends including Christian Slater, Johnny Depp and Matt Damon. But Winona’s successful career didn’t come without its troubles and after finding fame as a teen, the movie star disappeared from Hollywood following an infamous run-in with the law.

Winona, named after the Minnesota city she was born in, had an unconventional start to life when at the age of seven she moved with her parents and younger brother to Rainbow, a 300-acre commune in California where they lived with seven other families. Although described as a “hippie commune”, Winona insists her parents, who were both authors, were more “beatnik”. She told Parade in 2019: “They were much more—I would say—beatnik, even though beatnik is sort of the precursor to the hippies.”

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She also opened up about her childhood to Interview magazine in 1990, recalling how her parents had “no rules” for her growing up and would even allow her to try out new drugs if she wanted to. She explained: “There were no rules—nothing like that. If I wanted to take a drug because I was in school and everybody was doing it, I could go to my parents and say, ‘I really want to try this.’ And they’d say, ‘If you do this, okay, but this is what can happen to you…’

“They’d say, ‘Don’t get it in the streets, because it could be really bad and make you freak out. Don’t take it in a crowded place, because you’ll panic’.” But Winona claimed their openness about drugs actually left her not wanting to take them.

Though there were no TVs in the commune, Winona’s mother would put up a sheet in one of the barns and screen old movies on a projector — sparking her passion for film. The family moved to Petaluma, California when she was 11 and Winona began acting, landing her first movie role at 13 in the 1986 coming-of-age rom-com Lucas.

Within five years Winona was a household name, after starring in the 1988 cult-classic dark comedy Heathers and playing Lydia Deetz in the original Beetlejuice the same year. At 19 she was cast in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands alongside Johnny Depp and the pair would go on to become one of the “it” couples of the 90s.

Winona was just 18 when she first locked eyes with Johnny, then 27, at the premiere of Great Balls of Fire! in 1989. A few months later the couple had their first date at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont.

Their whirlwind romance saw them engaged within just five months of dating and Johnny was so head over heels for Winona he even got the words “Winona Forever” tattooed on his arm. But the pair never ended up tying the knot and after three years of dating they split in 1993, with Johnny later admitting he eventually changed the tattoo to read “Wino Forever”.

In an interview with Elle, Winona recalled the split was her “first real breakup, the first heartbreak”. But the pair seemed to remain on good terms and in 2020 Winona expressed her support for Johnny while he attempted to sue the Sun newspaper over an article that alleged he assaulted his ex-wife Amber Heard.

In a statement submitted to a London High Court, Winona said she was “shocked, confused and upset” when she heard the accusations against the actor, adding: “The idea that he is an incredibly violent person is the farthest thing from the Johnny I knew and loved.”

After her split from Johnny, Winona continued to cement her fame in Hollywood, going on to star in blockbusters including 1994’s Little Women, 1997 sci-fi Alien: Resurrection and the 1999 drama Girl, Interrupted — which tells the story of a teen who has a nervous breakdown and is checked into a psychiatric hospital after overdosing on painkillers. But the breakup with Depp kicked off a difficult time in her life.

“That was my Girl, Interrupted in real life,” she told Harpers Bazaar last year. In 2001 her career took a huge blow when she was arrested for shoplifting $5,000 worth of designer clothes from the swanky Saks department store in Beverly Hills.

At the time, police found Winona in possession of eight different types of painkillers, which she later revealed had been prescribed after she broke her arm in two placed by a “quack” doctor who ended up losing his medical licence. Opening up about her shoplifting scandal in 2007, Winona told People the painkillers had left her in a state of “confusion” but said her arrest ended up being a “blessing.”

She was found guilty of grand theft and was sentenced to three years’ supervised probation, ordered to do 480 hours of community service, undergo counselling and was also fined a total of $2,700. After the incident, Winona made a “very conscious decision not to work” as she retreated from Hollywood and went to live in San Francisco near her family, who offered her support.

“No one ever got angry with me. Concerned, yes, but not concerned with a drug problem or anything. Because after that night I pretty much didn’t ever. … If you are ever arrested, you can’t ever do that again,” she said. Winona eventually returned to acting, starring in 2009’s Star Trek and Black Swan the following year as well as securing a handful of other small roles.

But her big comeback came in 2016 when she was cast in the hit Netflix series Stranger Things as Joyce Byers, a mother desperately searching for her missing son. The nostalgic 80s feel to the series made Winona perfect for the role and the producers, the Duffer Brothers said she “completely transformed the show,” which is set to come to an end after the release of the upcoming fifth season.

Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk