Winona Ryder

Biography

A striking, pale, sylph-like actress, Ryder has successfully segued from off-beat teen roles to strong adult parts. See Winona's nude pictures here. She received a "classic" alternative upbringing, spending some of her childhood on a Northern California commune--she boasts acid culture guru Timothy Leary as her godfather--and spent much of her time protesting Agent Orange with her (then-unmarried) parents.

After a brief foray on stage, Winona made her feature debut as the girlfriend aspirant of the title character in "Lucas" (1986) before tackling the leading role of a Texas teen on a soul-searching journey in the small and largely ignored "Square Dance" (1987).

Ryder enjoyed her first real attention with her portrayal of the wonderfully morbid teen in Tim Burton's horror comedy "Beetlejuice" (1988). Her underplayed, deadpan performance all but stole the film from the broader styles of Michael Keaton.

She solidifed her position as one of the most promising actresses of her generation as an accidental teenage killer in Michael Lehmann's dark cult comedy, "Heathers" and the child bride of Jerry Lee Lewis in the biopic "Great Balls of Fire!" (both 1989). While she was wasted in "Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael". Tim Burton's romantic fantasy "Edward Scissorhands" (both 1990), which teamed her with then-fiance Johnny Depp, offered the actress an oportunity to deliver a surprisingly mature performance, hampered only by an ill-advised blonde wig.

Critics enjoyed--but audiences were leery of--"Mermaids" (also 1990), a 1960s comedy/drama starring Cher and Christina Ricci, who looked eerily like Ryder, as her kid sister. Forced by illness to drop out of Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather, Part III" (1990), Winona Ryder made it up to the director by accepting her first--but far from last--19th Century role as vampire prey in "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), providing the film's unwavering emotional core without being overshadowed by the phantasmagoric special effects, lavish production design, and far showier acting of her costars.

She was another Victorian victim (this time of her own rigid social upbringing) in Martin Scorsese's visually breathtaking adaptation of Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence" (1993), sexy Ryder held her own with co-stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer and earned her first Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress.

She returned to modern-day roles with a vengeance in the ground-breaking hit "Reality Bites" (1994), a comedy-drama oriented toward disenfranchised twentysomethings. But she quickly donned corset and crinoline again for her Oscar-nominated turn as aspiring writer Jo March in Gillian Armstrong's fine rendering of "Little Women" (1994).

After re-teaming with Day-Lewis for the fine screen version of Arthur Miller's classic play "The Crucible" (1996), Winona took on the co-starring role of an android battling a part-human monster sired by Sigourney Weaver's Ripley clone in "Alien Resurrection" (1997). Except for a small but pivotal role in Woody Allen's "Celebrity" (1998), she was offscreen until 1999's "Girl, Interrupted", in which she shone as a young woman in the 1960s who voluntarily checks into a mental institution after a suicide attempt.

Drawing on her own brief commitment in the early 90s, Ryder rose above the script's limitations to credibly render the rich, spoiled and confused 17-year-old, though Angelina Jolie trumped her as the irrepressible sociopath more responsible for Susanna's rehabilitation than the doctors. The following year saw her star in the exorcism thriller "Lost Souls" (the feature directorial debut of cinematographer Janusz Kaminski) and "Autumn in New York", in which she did a couple of naked scenes in her role as a woman romanced by a playboy (Richard Gere).

Pics

Nude photo from:
Autumn in New York (2000)

Naked movie clip in:
Autumn in New York (2000)