Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder is definitely not the first person we’ve covered whose “early life” section has an awful lot of people with their own blue names. For one thing, British actors will sometimes have those families where you have to say, “So during the reign of Henry VI” or whatever. Winona Ryder’s history is . . . not that. Her middle name is Laura, after Laura Huxley, wife of family friend Aldous. Her father was an archivist for Timothy Leary, who became her godfather. Family friends also included Philip K. Dick and Allen Ginsberg, and that’s a very different summary than, like, Helena Bonham Carter’s family.

Really, it’s the kind of background that gives you the goth darling of the early ‘90s. In 1989, Life magazine was doing a tribute to the fiftieth anniversary of what is arguably still one of the greatest years in film history, and they hyped Winona Ryder as a rising star as part of “Hollywood keeps going even though James Stewart and Ginger Rogers are, like, really old.” She had the year before appeared in Beetlejuice, though Life being Life was much more interested in Great Balls of Fire.

Me? I would adore her for Heathers. A lot of us would never entirely remember that she has aged since then. The movie itself has a few things that aren’t great, but man, it’s one of the best dark comedies of the ‘80s. Sherwood, Ohio, is a dark reflection of Shermer, Illinois, of the John Hughes movies. The cliques and the pep rallies and all that. And clearly, not only is Ryder’s Veronica one of the popular girls, she’s also a lot more upper class than is ever entirely acknowledged. One wonders what Veronica’s life would have looked like had JD not moved there; I like to hope the only person from high school she would’ve friended on Facebook would be Betty.

It’s a little surprising that she had Oscar nominations in two consecutive years in the early ‘90s and not since. (She lost to Anna Paquin and Jessica Lange.) She wasn’t even nominated for Girl, Interrupted, in ‘99, I guess because Meryl Streep needed the nomination for a movie not even her fans remember. I don’t even like Girl, Interrupted all that much and I’m surprised by it. I haven’t actually seen Stranger Things yet, but I would’ve thought nostalgia would get her an Emmy nomination for it if nothing else.

It’s that damn shoplifting charge is what it probably is. She was clinically depressed and on medication prescribed by someone who later lost his license for unethical meds prescribing. He also prescribed for Courtney Love, which will tell Gen X-ers a lot. Also, come on, it’s shoplifting. Like, it was a lot of shoplifting, but can we talk about other people who maintain careers after doing much worse? I’m not going to, because it just makes me mad, but seriously. We know she can act; turn her loose on something worthy of her.