From TV Guide - August 10, 2002
The Very Strange Case of Winona Ryder
HOW DOES A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG MOVIE STAR FIND HERSELF IN THE STARRING
ROLE OF ALLEGED SHOPLIFTER? OUR CHARACTER STUDY OF THE INTRIGUING ACTRESS PROVIDES
A FEW ANSWERS ...
THE STYLIST FOR ONE OF WINONA RYDER'S first photo shoots nearly 20 years ago
knew that Ryder would someday be famous.” She was just really focused,"
Abby Minot says about the girl posing for head shots, then a junior high school
student. "She had this vision. You could just tell she was going places."
Ryder did go places, appearing to vault effortlessly from her days as the child
of hippie parents in Petaluma, California, to enjoying what was, for a while,
one of the most admired
careers in Hollywood, complete with two Oscar nominations (1993'5 "The
Age of Innocence" and 1994's "Little Women") and many critically
acclaimed films ("Beetlejuice; "Edward Scissorhands"; ''How to
Make an American Quilt").
But one day last month, Ryder, 30, was somewhere people like Minot never expected her to be: in the 39th-floor Los Angeles office of her high-powered defense attorney, Mark Geragos, plotting strategy for a criminal case against her. On December 12, 2001, Ryder was arrested for allegedly shoplifting about $4,760 worth of items from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. On February 5, she pleaded not guilty to felony charges of grand theft, burglary and vandalism. A Saks security guard testified at Ryder's preliminary hearing in June that she had witnessed the actress cut tags off of merchandise. Ryder was accused of stealing 17 items, including two pairs of Donna Karan socks, two pairs of Calvin Klein socks, a $750 YSL blouse, two designer handbags, three beaded purses and two Eric Javits hats. She was also charged with possession of the painkiller Oxycodone without a prescription. If convicted of the charges, Ryder could face more than three years in prison. At press time, there was a chance the case would be settled out of court.
How did an actress who earns up to $5 million per picture, lives in a $3 million Beverly Hills home, drives a black Mercedes and dates famous actors and rock stars find herself in this mess? And furthermore, what career verdict will be handed down by the jury of her Hollywood peers?
"It's a nightmare;' a source close to Ryder said in July. "\We're shocked that it's gone on so long. We're not talking about a heinous crime here."
Indeed, the air of frivolity surrounding the case last spring-when Ryder herself posed in a FREE WINONA T-shirt for the cover of W magazine and made light of her arrest when she hosted Saturday Night Live in May - waned by summer. Although her most recent film, "Mr. Deeds," in which she costarred with Adam Sandler, did well at the box office, Ryder was not featured on the movie's posters. She has a cameo in the coming movie "Simone," starring Al Pacino, but she has not signed on for any new films. Late last month, a satirical play called "My Name Is Winona and I'm a Shoplifter" opened at a West Hollywood playhouse. The play, which runs through August, stars actor Rex Lee in drag as Winona.
Tom Rothman, chairman of 20th Century Fox, is one of the few in Hollywood who will go on the record in support of Ryder. "People sense that this is a woman who's being put through the wringer by publicity-hungry prosecutors," Rothman said in July. The two got to know each other when Ryder costarred in two 20th Century Fox movies, 1996's "The Crucible" and 1997's "Alien: Resurrection." "It's an outrage. But I truly believe this will all go away."
Like most celebrities, Ryder has had various headlinemaking moments. She abruptly dropped out of "The Godfather Part III" in 1990 as well as last year's "Lily and the Secret Painting," both times reportedly due to illness. (Ryder has described herself as a chronic insomniac and, in fact, briefly checked herself into the psychiatric ward of a hospital at age 20.) She is notorious for her high-profile romances and intense breakups with the likes of Johnny Depp, Soul Asylum lead singer Dave Pirner, Matt Damon and, most recently, rising pop star Pete Yom. "You're no one in music," Courtney Love once famously said, "until you have a feud with me or sleep with Winona."
Born Winona Laura Horowitz in Winona, Minnesota, Ryder-who is known to friends
and family as Noni-was raised by hippie parents Michael Horowitz, 63, and Cindy
Palmer, 61, who did not marry until Ryder was 11. (Ryder has a sister and brother,
Sunyata, 35, and Jubal, 33, from her mother's first marriage, and a brother,
Uri, 26).
Her early childhood \vas spent on a commune called Rainbow near Mendocino, California,
before the family moved to Petaluma when Ryder was 8. During her first week
of school there, Ryder was bullied by kids who mistook her for a gay boy. Her
parents agreed to homeschool her, and shortly after, she enrolled in the American
Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. She was spotted by an agent and made
her film debut in 1986's "Lucas."
"Her parents were behind her and supporting her even though they were broke and didn't care about money," says Minot, the stylist at her early photo shoot. "Their attitude was, she's got this vision and this dream, and we want to make this happen for her. It was a hippie idea."
Ryder had her first brush with the law at age 12, when she was placed under citizen's arrest for shoplifting a comic book. The police brought her back home, and "my parents tried to beat them up;' she once said.
Her parents have never abandoned their political activism. Ryder's father, considered an expert in drug literature, was once an archivist for LSD guru Timothy Leary. In 1971, when Leary was on the lam from the FBI, hiding in Switzerland after escaping from the prison where he was serving time on drug charges, Horowitz went to see him. The two took a hit of acid and went skiing. At one point during the day, Horowitz who would later be visited by FBI agents himself because of his relationship with Leary-took out a photograph of his newborn daughter, Winona, and asked Leary to be her godfather. Leary agreed.
Today, Horowitz runs Flashback Books, a store in Tiburon, California, that specializes in drug-related titles. Sample books for sale include Hippie Sex, Groupies and Other Girls, The Sexual Power of Marijuana and How to Get Balled in Berkeley. He and his wife are the directors of the Fitz Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library, the largest collection of psychoactive drug books and related materials in the world. In 1998, Ryder's mother moved hippie Abbie Hoffman's dying wife, Anita, into the San Francisco apartment Ryder bought for her mom so Anita could live out her last days there.
"Her parents were very committed and artistic;' recalls John Schaeffer, president of the ecofriendly company Real Goods, who lived on the electricity-free Rainbow commune with the Horowitzes and six to 10 other families. "We built our own houses. It was about living lightly on the planet and challenging local political authority. Noni lived in a home nicknamed the 'Mansion: Noni did a lot of acting and dress-up. They were a great family."
Others who grew up in the same circles as Ryder, whose parents, like hers,
were friends with '60s counterculture icons Leary, Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg-often
describe their childhoods as idyllic but say they have had trouble adjusting
to adult life. They often encounter prejudice from people who think they were
raised by drug-crazed beatniks.
"We all battle it-I personally hate it;' says Stacy Kreutzmann, 38, daughter
of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, of the stigma attached to having grown
up in the culture. "1 don't even like to tell people who my parents are
anymore:'
Lisa Ferguson, 41, the daughter of jazz musician Maynard Ferguson, also counted Timothy Leary as a lifelong friend and, like Ryder, attended Leary's wake. She directed a coming documentary, "Children of the Revolution:' which includes footage of Ryder, Stacy Kreutzmann, the children of members of the radical group the Weather Underground and many others.
"Our parents really thought we were more than the start of a new' generation, we were almost the start of a new species" says Ferguson, who as a child lived on a Millbrook, New York, estate where her fatl1er, Leary, Horowitz and others conducted experiments with psychedelics before they were raided in 1966 by G. Gordon Liddy, then an assistant district attorney in Dutchess County, New York.
"The word that sums up those people is irresponsible;' says Liddy, who went on to debate Leary and Hoffman on the college circuit before their deaths. "Especially when it came to their children. If any of them did well later in life, it was a triumph over irresponsibility and stupidity"
Ferguson has a very different opinion. "We were raised around these people who were so loving and filled with adventurousness" she says. "There was a sense that something magical was happening. It was like the window of consciousness was opening up and \,,'e all had a chance and we should take it. But for all of us kids, it never panned out. The world changed."
Could disillusionment have led Ryder into a legal quagmire? As Ferguson puts it, "The hippie family ethic is based on love, truth, equality.The entertainment industry is the most nasty, power· mongering business on earth."
Terrence Shulman, a spokesman for Cleptomaniacs and Shoplifters Anonymous, says the desire to shoplift is often fueled by anger. "Shoplifting is a classic way to nonviolently show anger when something's unfair, something's been taken away from them:' says Shulman. "People who feel anxiety calm themselves by shoplifting. They learn that pocketing something creates an adrenaline rush that counteracts anxiety. And just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you're not depressed:'
Geragos, whose former clients include Robert Downey Jr. and Whitewater defendant
Susan McDougal, maintains that the charges against Ryder are a "misunderstanding"
and that she has receipts for "what she thought she was buying. She had
some merchandise on her that she was not aware of' Ryder, through her publicist,
turned down a request
from TV GUIDE to be interviewed.
Most people close to the case scoff at the theory that Ryder was targeted because the Los Angeles County district attorney, Steve Cooley, the son of an FBI agent, does not take kindly to her left-wing background-or her current politics. She has been an active advocate, for example, of Leonard Peltier, the former leader of the American Indian Movement who is serving a life sentence for the slayings of two FBI agents at Pine Ridge Indian Reserve in South Dakota in 1975.
"Winona is not exactly Ethel Rosenberg:' says veteran Hollywood crisis management specia1ist Allan Mayer, who represented Halle Berry when she was accused of leaving the scene of a car accident and Paula Poundstone against charges of child endangerment. "But for some reason, this case spiraled out of control."
Others in the entertainment industry wonder if Cooley, who was elected over incumbent Gil Garcetti (who came to national prominence during the OJ. Simpson case), wanted to be extra tough on Ryder because she is a celebrity. "That's a preposterous statement:' says Joe Scott, Cooley's director of communications. Scott blames Geragos, a fixture on the nightly cable-news shows, for asking for repeated delays in the case. "At the same time, he's trying to make it seem that she's a victim because of her celebrity:' Scott says. In June, a judge postponed a preliminary hearing when he learned that Ryder had broken her arm after being struck by a camera at the courthouse.
Geragos failed in his bid last month to get a judge to disqualify the D.A’s office, claiming that prosecutors have tried to humiliate Ryder with false accusations in the media. He contends that it was the prosecution, in fact, who asked for the first delay of the case, back in January, and says that those who wonder why the case has dragged on so long forget that the charges against Ryder are unusually serious. "We're not dealing with misdemeanor shoplifting" he says of the felony charges. At least one Ryder supporter knows the actress more for giving than for taking. Marc Klaus met Ryder after his 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was abducted from the Klaus home in Petaluma in 1993. (She was later found murdered.) Ryder took enormous personal interest in the case and offered S2oo,000 as reward money. "I don't know anyone who's come forth as unselfishly as Winona says Klaas. "Her assistance was totally unsolicited."
Not surprisingly, some believe the D.A:s office harbors its own public relations agenda. Says Ferguson, "I think the D.A. want to get famous by prosecuting a famous person"
Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the D.A:s office, denies the accusations. "If you or I walked out with $4,000 or $5,000 worth of merchandise. Where would we be?" she says. ''If Winona thinks she should be treated differently because she's a celebrity, that's her issue.”
Ryder is due in court August 13 when a trial date may be set, if the case isn't settled before then. Many people in Hollywood believe she will beat the rap, especially if she keeps her mouth shut. "It's still not the worst thing in the world” says crisis-management expert Mayer. "But some of this she's brought on herself. She should just leave it alone and not make jokes about it. Just keep a low profile and go back to work:'.
Dana Kennedy wrote about the documentary The Hamptons in the June 1 issue.