A Return For Debra Winger

Debra Winger shared critical acclaim with actress Shirley MacLaine the film "Terms of Endearment" a quarter-century ago. Now, after a long absence from the screen, she is back in the spotlight. Tracy Smith offers this Sunday Profile.

The next hat she wore was Richard Gere's in "An Officer and a Gentleman," a role that won her her first Oscar nomination.

And then she broke the country's heart in "Terms of Endearment."

Almost thirty years later, the roles Debra Winger brought to life still resonate as powerfully as ever, particularly with women, who lined up recently at the Jacob Barnes Film Center in Pleasantville, N.Y., to hear what she has to say.

"She doesn't look all made up, she looks like a regular person - that's who she is," said Audrey Weill.

"I'll never forget that scene (from "Terms") in the hospital with her boys," Ellen Lewis recalled. "It just really made an impression on me. I just don't know how somebody can go through something like that."

And yet, quick - name the last movie you saw Debra Winger in.

"I fled, it's true," Winger told Smith.

Winger's Hollywood exit, as definitive as her entrance a little more than a decade earlier, even inspired a documentary by fellow actress Rosanna Arquette, "Searching for Debra Winger."

Why did Debra Winger leave? Why'd she just walk away?

"I had a pretty big ride in the late '70s and '80s and I had to equal that in real life," she said.

Getting her to talk about her life's journey requires a little journeying of one's own … in this case up the side of a hill near her Catskill Mountains farmhouse, to a treehouse built by her husband, director Arliss Howard.

As she said, he got a little carried away, what with the winding spiral staircase and swaying rope bridge. There, Debra Winger actually talked about herself, though she described talking about her past as "torturous."

"I wasn't a big history buff, either," she said. "It's not so much me, it's any - "

"Any past?" Smith asked. "I mean, you were nominated for three Oscars."

"There's an -ed on that word!" Winger laughed.

(Simon & Schuster)

It's not so much autobiography as it is philosophy, a collection of thoughts and essays that, she says, a book agent had to beg her to publish.

"I would love to say, 'And then I felt it was time to publish this book.' But really, I was taken kicking and screaming and against my better judgment."

She was born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and though the family moved to southern California when she was young, Winger says she never dreamed of being an actress.

She actually wanted to go into criminal rehabilitation and counseling when she was young.

But in her teenage years, fate intervened. In her book she wrote of a life-changing moment when she fell off a truck.

"At 17, I had, you know, sort of an event," she said. "I think a lot of people have one in their life. Sometimes it's a crisis, or a loss, or sometimes it's an accident. It's a mortality sandwich, and you have to eat it!
"I basically said, 'I better do what my deepest dreams are,' and I just happened to, you know, I caught a good ride."

Success came fast. On TV, she played Wonder Woman's younger sister, Drusilla. And then came "Urban Cowboy."

"I was ready. I knew that girl. I knew that role. I knew I could do it."

So sure, that she put on her cowboy boots and marched onto the studio lot.

"Literally the director came back from lunch, and I was there, dressed as that character."

And yet fame, when it came, scared and confused her. She fled to a Hollywood hotel.

"Hiding," she describes it. "It was pretty scary in the beginning."

"What were scared of?" Smith asked.

Winger laughed. "I don't know. You're only scared of the unknown. So, I have no idea."

She didn't hide for long. Two years later she starred opposite Richard Gere in "An Officer and a Gentleman" (left), a film with a storybook ending that both she and Gere fought against at first.

(Paramount Pictures)

Although that film earned Winger an Oscar nomination, it also fueled rumors that she was "difficult."

"It's really not that important," she says now. "I didn't hurt anyone. I didn't, you know, kill anyone, that I know of."

Her second Oscar nod came for "Terms of Endearment," in which she played Emma, the terminally ill daughter of Aurora Greenway, played by Shirley MacLaine.

"Just in preparing for that role, did you channel your relationship with your own mom?" Smith asked.

"I don't think we want to use 'channel' in 'Terms of Endearment'!" Winger said. "I want that camera on, just 'cause I said nothing, you did everything, and I will take the hit," she laughed.

On screen, the mother/daughter sparks flew. So did off-screen rumors of real-life tension between Debra and Shirley.

"We worked together. Whatever anyone else will say and what we have said for the sake of spicy publicity …"

"Is that what it was?" Smith asked.

"Well, I think you can kind of figure it's Shirl and I. I mean, you know, we're not stupid."

"So, let's play up this conflict a little bit?" Smith asked.

(Paramount Pictures)

"No, I don't think it was ever on purpose. But we could see that it was, like, a very easy way out of the conversation. Who wants to sit around and talk about what you did and how you worked the character and, i mean, you don't wanna sit around and talk about acting. So you just go, 'Yeah. Boy, we really dusted it up that day.' And partially, it was true. We were constantly, you know, picking at places.

"I think we did it for the right reason, to explore that relationship. And you know, none of us were hurt by it. We're both big girls."

"and maybe the end result was better because of it?"

"How could it not be?" Winger replied. "You're going somewhere you haven't been before."

"Can you dispel a myth? Did you guys actually slug each other?" Smith asked.

"Don't remember. Possible!"

"That's a good answer."

"Totally possible. Slug, no. There was no blood drawn. There might have been a scuffle. I don't remember. I mean, we were wild, you know? She's not a wilting violet. (laughter) She's tough, too."

MacLaine won the Oscar that year. Debra went on to make several more successful movies … "Legal Eagles," "The Sheltering Sky," and "Shadowlands," which got her yet another Oscar nomination.

But as her resume got thicker, her patience with the movie business was wearing thin.

"I started to have children and they were so fascinating to me. And I didn't really want to be away that much. So I would do one film a year. And then it became one film every two years. And then, I just said, 'You know, it's better to just make this clean.'"

So she disappeared from Hollywood, moved to New York, and focused on being a mom, working with the charity Sightsavers International, tending her garden and writing.

"I think it was sort of a decade of reflection for me, and this book is that."

She stuck her toe in the water occasionally, appearing in and helping produce "Big Bad Love" with her director-husband Arliss Howard.

And now, you could say, Debra Winger's ready to come down from her mountain retreat. She's getting rave reviews for her part in a new movie "Rachel Getting Married." This time she plays the mother, of troubled daughter Anne Hathaway.

And while she's through with talking about the past ...

"I'm exhausted from my life!" she laughed.

… Debra winger is ready and eager for whatever roles lie ahead.

"So are you hopeful that there are some good Debra Winger parts out there in the future?" Smith asked.

"I don't know what a 'Debra Winger part' is, frankly," Winger said. "But I do know that I have experienced 10 years of, you know, meeting women that have compelling stories to tell within other people's films. And, you know, I hope I get the chance to bring it the way that I look and the way that I am. I'm not sure that I will get that, you know? It just remains to be seen."