Winona Ryder had an interesting childhood, but not as interesting as Lydia Deetz's.
She wasn't a goth, even though she's known for her gothic character from Beetlejuice, appeared in other gothic films like Edward Scissorhands, and dated someone like Johnny Depp, who has that dark, vampire rockstar look.
No, she wasn't hoping for death and writing a suicide note that explained she was utterly alone and had plummeted to the bottom of the Winter River Bridge, even though she was bullied. She used her talents and experiences to become one of the most famous actresses ever.
She did have an unconventional childhood, though, and has dubbed herself an outsider. Actually, she had a childhood closer to actor Joaquin Phoenix and his siblings. She was born to hippie-like parents, who moved the family to a commune-like place to live.
Here's what Ryder's childhood was really like.
She Was Named After The City She Was Born In
Ryder was named after the town she was born in; Winona, Minnesota. Her middle name is Laura, after Laura Huxley, author Aldous Huxley's wife, and Ryder's parents' friend.
She was, what some call, a "shoelace baby," or a baby not born near a hospital, who needs boiled shoelaces to help tie off the umbilical cord.
"I basically came a little early," Ryder told Parade, "and it was on a farm in Winona, and my dad went into a complete panic, and all he knew was to sterilize a shoelace!"
Her parents are Cynthia Palmer and Michael D. Horowitz, who are creative people in their own right. Her mother is an author, video producer, and editor, and her father is an author, editor, publisher, and antiquarian bookseller. Her father was also an archivist for the psychedelic guru Timothy Leary, who became Ryder's godfather.
Her father's family is Jewish and was originally called Tomchin. They fled Europe but most of them were killed in the Holocaust. When they came to America they changed their name to Horowitz. In fact, Ryder had a fear as a child that someone would come and drag the family away because of what her family went through in the Holocaust.
When Ryder was only six months old, her family moved to San Fransico.
Her Parents Were Free-Spirited
Ryder wouldn't label her parents as hippies. "They were much more—I would say—beatnik, even though beatnik is sort of the precursor to the hippies."
So her parents were pretty much hippies before it was cool, and hung out with family friends like Leary, and the Beat Movement poets Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick.
Her mother once worked as a projectionist at the University of Minnesota, so she was skilled in setting up a sheet and a projector for her daughter to watch films against the barn. "I remember watching To Kill a Mockingbird. That was when I really fell in love with movies," she said.
When she was seven, her family moved onto a piece of land in Northern California, called Rainbow, which was owned by one of her father's friends, and housed six other families. Ryder doesn't like to use the word commune, though, when describing it.
"The place we lived was, like, 380 acres of redwoods. It was beautiful." There was no electricity and therefore no television, so Ryder became an avid reader. Her favorite was J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.
"We didn’t have a lot of money," Ryder told Marie Claire. "But the love compensation was amazing. My dad would make little things exciting, like bringing home Rolos. There’s that saying, 'you find your family,' but I would have chosen them even if they weren’t my parents. They’re my best friends."
She says they are still madly in love with each other.
Kids At School Bullied Her
At age 10, her family moved to Petaluma, California, and she attended Kenilworth Junior High, where she was bullied. "I definitely had a difficult time—like, socially." Her grades were good but she was definitely an outsider.
Ryder told Harper’s Bazaar in 2000, an especially horrific yet justifiably revengeful story about her bullying days. In fact, it was a story that went viral.
"I was wearing an old Salvation Army–shop boy’s suit. I had a hall pass, so I went to the [girls’] bathroom," she said. "I heard people saying, 'Hey, faggot.' They slammed my head into a locker. I fell to the ground and they started to kick the shit out of me. I had to have stitches. The school kicked me out, not the bullies. Years later, I went to a coffee shop in Petaluma, and I ran into one of the girls who’d kicked me, and she said, 'Winona, Winona, can I have your autograph?' and I said, 'Do you remember me? I went to Kenilworth. Remember how, in seventh grade, you beat up that kid?' and she said, 'Kind of,' and I said, 'That was me. Go f— yourself!'"
Other bullies used to throw Cheetos at her because she had a crew cut and liked the Sex Pistols.
Despite all this, she started her acting career shortly after moving to Petaluma. Her parents were strict about it though and demanded that she maintain a 4.0-grade point average and work on the weekends. At 13 she got a role in Lucas, but acting made the bullying, which carried on into high school, worse.
"I remember thinking, 'Ooh, it’s like the number-one movie. This is going to make things great at school.' But it made things worse. They called me a witch."
She did end up graduating high school with a 4.0, and working with great people in the industry, at such a young age, gave her some impressive role models and life-long friends, like Tim Burton, Keanu Reeves, and Johnny Depp.
She's still just as grounded as ever, and her parents continue to be her biggest influences. We wonder what her bullies are doing today. Not starring on Stranger Things, that's for sure.