Winona Ryder: Snapshot

Winona Ryder: Five Fun Facts

1. Winona Ryder says her natural hair color is actually blonde, but she's been dyeing it ever since she was asked to do so for her first film, Lucas, in 1986.
2. In 1988, Winona Ryder's classmates at Petaluma High School taunted the 16-year-old for her role in the dark comedy Beetlejuice. "Those hick kids thought I was a witch," Ryder told Time in 1995.
3. In 1997, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano Jr. publicly referred to Winona Ryder as a negative role model for having done "more damage to young girls" than any other actress "because she smokes all the time in every movie she makes."
4. When Winona Ryder was living with Johnny Depp in 1991, he once sent 200 packets of her favorite food, Oriental-flavored Ramen noodles, to her hotel room when she was away working on a film.
5. Winona Ryder has an eclectic collection of old celebrity memorabilia – such as Louis Armstrong's signed bongo drums, Leslie Caron's dress from An American in Paris and Sandra Dee's bikini from the string of Tammy movies.

Winona Ryder: Biography

1989

March 31

Heathers Breakout

The L.A. Times declares that Ryder is "Hollywood's hottest young heartthrob, heiress apparent to Molly Ringwald's teen throne" when she stars in the dark teen film Heathers (right). The movie quickly achieves cult-hit status with Ryder as teen murderess Veronica Sawyer. "As soon as we saw her onscreen, everybody immediately said: 'That girl is a movie star,'" director Michael Lehmann tells Los Angeles Magazine. Ryder confesses of her luck, "I never had to do the Hollywood thing, to move to L.A. and do commercials or sitcoms. That probably pisses people off. But I've worked really hard. I'm not going to apologize for not struggling."

Meeting Johnny Depp

Ryder works with director Tim Burton again as the empathetic Kim Boggs in the box-office hit Edward Scissorhands. While filming, Ryder begins dating costar Johnny Depp (left). "There's been nothing in my 27 years that's comparable to the feeling I have with Winona," Depp tells PEOPLE. The two move in together, become engaged in 1990, and Depp famously has "Winona Forever" tattooed on his upper right arm (he'll later alter it to "Wino Forever" after they call it quits after three years).

1990

Winona's Mental Issues

After dropping out of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather: Part III, Ryder checks into a psychiatric hospital after suffering from exhaustion, anxiety and depression. But she leaves the facility in less than two weeks. "I just realized that no matter how much money you pay," Ryder, who appears on a 1991 cover of Rolling Stone, says, "these places don't have the answers. Because there are no answers. You're just a human being, and you make a choice to go on with your life."

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Winona Ryder: Special Feature