NEW YORK — She may be well versed in Tolstoy and James Agee these days, but Debra Winger would still feel just fine taking a ride on that mechanical bull. Debra Winger--remember her? If your memory span is short or you're under say, 30, you have every right not to. She was last on the screen in the very forgettable "Forget Paris" opposite Billy Crystal. That was six years ago.
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Still on Her Terms
After dropping out of Hollywood in the '90s, Debra Winger isn't so much returning as fading in.
FOR THE RECORD
Los Angeles Times Thursday March 7, 2002 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 A2 Desk 1 inches; 28 words Type of Material: Correction
Actress' marriage--Debra Winger and her husband, actor-director Arliss Howard, met in 1991 and married in 1996. A Sunday Calendar story incorrectly characterized the length of their marriage.
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday March 10, 2002 Home Edition Calendar Part F Page 2 Calendar Desk 1 inches; 29 words Type of Material: Correction
Actress' marriage--Debra Winger and her husband, actor-director Arliss Howard, met in 1991 and married in 1996. A March 3 Sunday Calendar story incorrectly characterized the length of their marriage.
FOR THE RECORD
Los Angeles Times Thursday March 14, 2002 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 A2 Desk 1 inches; 21 words Type of Material: Correction
Director's name--The director of the film "Everybody Wins" is Karel Reisz. His first name was misspelled in a March 3 story about actress Debra Winger.
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday March 17, 2002 Home Edition Calendar Part F Page 2 Calendar Desk 1 inches; 21 words Type of Material: Correction
Director's name--The director of the film 'Everybody Wins' is Karel Reisz. His first name was misspelled in a March 3 story about actress Debra Winger.
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"It's true you haven't seen me in a long time unless you go to the legitimate theater in Boston or you've been a student at Harvard," says the actress, who has reemerged as producer and co-star of "Big Bad Love," a small, offbeat film directed by, and starring, her husband, Arliss Howard.
It's based on the short stories of Mississippi writer Larry Brown, and features Paul LeMat as Howard's war buddy, Rosanna Arquette as a funeral home heiress and Angie Dickinson in what could only be described as the Gena Rowlands role. But clearly it is Winger, still charismatic after all these years, who has the best chance of bringing anyone into the theater--if for no other reason than to see what the heck has become of her.
Well, rest easy. The navy-blue eyes are still as expressive as ever. The velvet croak is intact. As is the voluptuous body that memorably rode that bull in her 1980 movie breakthrough, "Urban Cowboy." OK, she's looking close to her almost 47 years, but she doesn't seem to mind. Nor does she look back at her quiet exit from mainstream Hollywood for most of the '90s with anything resembling regret. She just got fed up with the lack of interesting offers and made other choices.
"I didn't like announce my retirement, but I didn't look back and I was busy all the time," says the three-time Oscar nominee ("Terms of Endearment," "An Officer and a Gentleman," "Shadowlands"), sitting in the offices of IFC, which is distributing the film. She's dressed in black slacks and sweater, her auburn hair brushed out. "Time accelerates as you get older, and now when I hear it's been six years, it doesn't feel like it. I mean, I had a baby, my mom passed, I taught, I did two plays. I lived my life."
Still, to those around her and the industry in general, it felt as if she had said good riddance. "I realize that I'd created this system of roadblocks around me, so that even if there was some good material, it probably wouldn't have gotten to me," she concedes. "I wasn't reading and I wasn't out there looking. My agent bugged me for about a year, then he saw I was doing my thing and I was happy."
