Debra Winger

She was a good looking girl and a good actress...what's not to get?

Beautiful picture of her, OP.

OP = Shirley Maclaine!

Not a fan? Then you haven't seen an obscure thriller called Mike's Murder from 1983. She's beautiful in it.

A lot of people hated her. She was a real cunt to have to deal with. That's why the roles dried up.

R5 = Shirley MacLaine!

R4, yes, she was terrific in that. I always felt she was completely "present" in her films.

She sucked.

She could take a hit like a champ.

She was Drusilla aka Wonder Girl.

She registered very much in several roles. The Sheltering Sky is/was devastating to me. One of the best scores ever recorded.

Not a fan. Scraping-the-Chalkboard voice.

One of my favorites. She and Linda Fiorentino should play sisters.

And for anyone who thinks she can’t have a sense of humor about herself:

One of the great natural, unaffected actors like Jeff Bridges, Kathy Bates, Spencer Tracy.

......

Madonna thought she was terrible in Sheltering Sky.

Never seen in the same room with alter ego Holly Hunter.

[quote]Madonna thought she was terrible in Sheltering Sky.

and she's the best judge around.

She has papaya shaped boobs

Loved her

She is a great actress.

[quote] I was never a fan.

You say it like it means anything.

Ive pretty much loved certain movies just because of her. If a male actor is demanding and difficult,hes "eccentric" ,if a female actor is those things,shes a "cunt". Shes so talented she makes La Streep look like the 2nd rate act she is.

GIVE MY DAUGHTER THE SHOT!!!

A good film to watch.

Her pussy stinks!!

It's very telling that in a 1986 Barbara Walters interview Bette Davis said, per wiki, "I see a great deal of myself in Debra Winger."

If you’ve seen Terms of Endearment and don’t recognize the brilliance of Debra Winger, I feel certain that at this very moment you are watching something starring The Rock while drinking a room temperature can of Dr. Pepper.

Debra Winger was signed to play the lead in ‘A League of Their Own.’

Penny Marshall was having a hard time filling out the roster with actresses who could also actually catch a baseball, she added Madonna to the cast last minute. When Winger found out Madonna had been hired, she walked off the set. Dropped out. Geena Davis stepped in.

Smart cookie.

Early on she was really cute and had personality, like in Urban Cowboy, that could win the male lead away from much better looking female characters. I remember seeing UC with a group of high school friends and the straight guys thought she was adorable and sexy and preferred her to the more typically hotter female characters. Which included Jerry Hall and her sister.

I don't know: I think I'd rather work with Madonna than with Billy Crystal.

She was brains and personality. Very strong screen presence with soft butch overtones...kinda like a modern Stanwyck - not classically beautiful, bit possessing of a hard edge sex appeal. I know some say that she's difficult to work with but what you get from her on-screen is impossible to duplicate.

R29 - And I kinda love Debra for that!

Winger is in total obscurity today and Madonna is still, well, Madonna, inching closer and closer to her billion dollar net worth.

If you didn't see her in Season 3 of IN TREATMENT, she was good.

Trivia question:

When she got pregnant and had to leave Broadcast News James L. Brooks almost hired somebody else and then met Holly Hunter and gave it to her. Who was the third woman? (I heard this story at a TCM event.)

She was great in her small role in "Rachel Getting Married" (against Anne Hathaway). Whomever upthread talked about her being present in everything she does was spot-on.

Don’t forget that kiss with Teresa Russell in Black Widow.

She still seems volatile. She clashed majorly with David Mamet when she did a play of his with Patti Lupone a few years ago on Broadway. (although she may have been right in that case because the play was supposed to be terrible.)

At 18, she was very seriously injured in a car accident. Had a cerebral hemorrhage. Couldn't see for a number of months. When she recovered, she decided to go to LA and pursue an acting career.

Her appeal was that she starred in Urban Cowboy, An Officer & a Gentleman, and Terms in Endearment back to back (almost) which were all hugely successful in the pop culture zeitgeist. She was an original earthy, quirky, sexy but unconventional "star" who was perfect for the early eighties.

Then Mike's Murder, Legal Eagles, and Black Widow showed she could be dull in dull movies while simultaneously cultivating an extremely difficult reputation causing her to no longer be the sought out "star actress". Film makers and audiences moved on.

Tale as old as time....

[quote]Don’t forget that kiss with Teresa Russell in Black Widow.

Funny. I HAD forgotten that.

R28 I really liked that movie but looked right past her even though she was the lead. I focused on Jeff, Shirley and Jack

Why?!

Debra is wonderful in Black Widow aka Bullseye. She is perfectly cast as the smart but nerdy FBI agent who tracks Theresa Russell. It's also great to compare her acting with Russell, who is normally terrible but perhaps cast well here as a glamorous serial killer with the emotions of a teenager.

Black Widow is one of my fa Origen guilt pleasure films! It’s one of those good/bad films that I can’t but help liking. And even with fairly ordinary material - Winger ma ages to have quite a presence - and seem likeable. She was even likeable in Legal Eagles - which is also a not very good film. She so often manages to be much better than the material she’s given to work with (much like Bette Davis that someone mentioned upthread)

I love her long messy hair in the first half and am disappointed when she gets a haircut on her Hawaii trip.

Cher was the first choice for the killer and its a pity she turned it down, because Winger looks like her and that would have added to the FBI agent's fascination. However maybe Cher couldn't have pulled off the different roles the killer plays, as Cher always seems to play Cher.

Winger looks like Cher???

cher in 1987.

debra winger 1987.

Perms and vaginas, oh my!

It's been noted that Winger was in with an entire group of actresses that were just like her: Jessica Harper, Brooke Adams, Margot Kidder, Karen Allen, etc. They not only looked alike, they sounded alike with that scratchy, flat affect.

and Amy Irving.

and Janet Margolin.

and Kate Mulgrew.

and Kathleen Quinlan.

Kathleen Quinlan didn't have a scratchy voice. Hers was more sing-song and she had a lovely poetic quality. She was like the forerunner to Patricia Arquette, who spoke very slowly and you wondered whether she was somehow challenged.

In the 90s or early 00s, there was a documentary on Showtime called Searching For Debra Winger about what Hollywood actresses go through the title meaning Winger had a hot streak from the early to mid 80s and then just disappeared.

R60, punctuation is your friend.

Excellent actress. Average looks. I was like.. huh? When Winger was cast alongside drop dead gorgeous Linda Carter as Wonder Girl. I was wondering alright. 😑 WTF ??!!

Demi Moore and Kate Jackson were also in that group.

R59, I thought Quinlan's performance in "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" was easily the equal to Winger's best work. Of course, her career fizzled after that.

Her son.

R61: therapy needs to be your friend

Does her pussy stink?

LOFL R67 😅

Helen Shaver is also in that group.

Even though she didn't have the scratchy voice, DL fave Karen Lynn Gorney is an honorary member.

Marlo Thomas started this group.

R70, but that was before her three nose jobs.

andy warhol described winger as beautiful with a nose that just misses

winger took a break to raise her family, thats always a risk, people have short memories.

winger is argumentative,she despised richard gere and hated shirley macclaine. i listened to an interview she gave on the leonard lopate show that was cringe inducing.

From her Instagram account last year.

That pic of be-permed Debra at R52 reminds me of Barbara Hershey. Not exactly a look-alike, but they could've played sisters.

Lovely pic of the Horton's.

The Greenway Girls.

That picture of Barbara was 3 sets of lips ago.

This, R39? You have an odd definition of kissing.

Quinlan is excellent and hardly fizzled out. She was fantastic in The Doors, Apollo 13, Event Horizon and Breakdown (and excellent underrated film with a peak level Kurt Russell).

She could've done so much more. I love how someone upthread described her voice as sing song. She had a very pleasant voice and presence overall but could also be wonderfully emotive.

It would have been interesting to see Raquel Welch in Winger's role in CANNERY ROW, if she hadn't been fired. I know someone who had a supporting role in that, and they thought Welch was perfect.

She's kind of a prickly person and I've never seen her be really great in anything, but at the same time, most of Raquel Welch's roles were very one-dimentional. Maybe that would have brought out some more depth in her.

Winger & Nolte were much better together when they reunited in 1990 for "Everybody Wins". Not a great movie, but miles above "Cannery Row" & the cast is excellent.

Not the CPR thing R78, there’s a kiss (not making out, but a definite kiss) late in Black Widow. Plus, you can feel an under current of attraction between the two throughout the movie. A great example of a movie so bad that it’s kind of good. Winger is very watchable, even in crap movies. Love her.

I don't think BLACK WIDOW is bad at all. It's very cleanly presented...it's not like it's any kind of inept mess.

One aspect of the ending has always kind of confused me (not to give anything away), but that's just a minor misstep.

She’s always had kind of a masculine energy to her, I can’t pinpoint it exactly.

She grew up Orthodox Jewish in Cleveland and her midwestern accent was always really strong (even in Terms where she was supposed to play a Texan).

we talk about diversity and such shit now but it’s really kind of amazing that someone with her kind of looks became such a major mainstream star in the early 80s.

Legal Eagles was such a terrible movie - I saw it in the theater with my mom and sister.

R83 I do think Black Widow is a good movie. When I was in high school Black Widow ran constantly on cable and I watched it with my siblings 2 or 3 times. There was just something about the sets and camera shots that reminded me of an 80s prime-time TV soap. I’m certainly no production expert, just something about the way it rolled was off and it distracted me.

R79, Quinlan was considered the next big thing after INPYARG but never had that career.

Debra Winger is the real deal. She is an honest performer who's also not afraid to be herself and speak candidly offscreen, even if it makes her look scattered.

Bette Davis singled Winger out as the performer of her generation she admired. She said Winger could have a Bette Davis-type career "if she [italic] wants it." [/italic]

But Winger did not "want" a huge career in the way some cutthroat performers do, where they will do anything for a part, anything for attention.

When she had that chat with Alec Baldwin on his show she commented that she wasn't mentally strong enough to have a sustained career like Streep. And someone else commented that her withdrawing from A League of Their Own was a bad move for her. She went to England for Shadowlands which got her another Oscar nomination, and Billy Crystal tried to revive her Hollywood career with Forget Paris but that didn't work. So she stopped making films and raised her family instead. Thus Searching for Debra Winger.

She slept in a graveyard to prepare for the funeral scene in Urban Cowboy.

I enjoyed Forget Paris.

She showed off her gift for physical comedy with a bird stuck to her head.

[quote]R89 Why don't you try acting, dear girl?

There are different types of actors. Some are internal (like Winger), some are external (like Olivier).

Lucy Ricardo liked to soak up the local color.

She was the most talented actress of her generation, at that level of fame when she was at her peak. Always found her very hot, and a very interesting performer. If she'd been European she'd have had a much longer career, or maybe she would have sent them packing as well. Who knows?

To get into character she liked to fart in Shirley's face.

True story.

I don't know all the specifics, but I read that the original big Chekvov plays in Russia were rehearsed for 6 months. If a scene was set in a garden, they'd sometimes rehearse in a real garden...or an actual sitting room, or whatever. The approach was to find some naturalism, to imprint some kind of real experience on the performer that they could then convey onstage, and transfer to an audience. The dialogue and situation was supposed to become second nature.

The point being...there's no one way to "act", as Olivier so arrogantly suggested. He may as well have said, "Why don't you try acting [italic] like me?"

A gorgeous voice, great hair, expressive eyes - what's more to ask from an actress?

Deep Thoughts...

I just watched Black Widow because of this thread, and while it's an okay movie, the end really doesn't make any sense. The killer, "Renee", never slips up when she goes to talk to Alex the agent, who is imprisoned for Renee's crime, or is pretending to be. Only AFTER it is revealed that the target, Paul, isn't really dead, does she admit that she poisoned his brandy.

So suddenly she felt remorse and Alex just got lucky?

Emma would never have pooted in Aurora’s face.

She was also the voice of ET which had to make for a nice paycheck!

She praised Faye Dunaway's performance in Mommie Dearest, saying it was like kabuki theatre.

[quote]R98 I just watched Black Widow because of this thread, and while it's an okay movie, the end really doesn't make any sense. The killer...

That’s what I was referring to in r83. I don’t get that part.

R65, thanks for that. I'd never heard of him. He's cute and smart and seems (who knows?) like a nice guy.

Another good thing about Black Widow is Sami Frey.

You're welcome, R103. :)

r101 I think Faye called it Kabuki.

She writes in her book that Debra Winger once approached her and asked why she hated the movie so. Winger said she thought it was great and saw it five times. Faye then explains in the book that she appreciates the people who like it but explains why it was such a painful job for her.

Winger is such a contrarian.

R105, Was it that she had to recall a painful time in her own life to come up with the performance?

Debra Winger, like Julia Roberts, was not really an actress actress as much as a personality actress.

Karen Lynn Gorney—cast as a dancer but couldn’t dance.

Black Widow watchers: did you spot DL fave Rutanya Alda?

She had an earthy quality which would be hard to find on screen today.

She was like the anti-Streep. You never saw her acting acting.

The Anti Streep

R41 she didn’t have to “go to LA” she already LIVED in LA & graduated from my HS - James Monroe HS in North Hills, then called Sepulveda back then.

R114, were you in school at the same time?

Pauline Kael over at r112, nursing her lesbian crush.

Kiss from Black Widow

Shit, someone already posted it. Sorry, guys.

Debra after her haircut in Black Widow.

Gotta say I don't get all this love for "Black Widow".

I love Black Widow. On the surface, it's a standard thriller but I love the subtext - the attraction between the two characters. My only criticism is also the ending I wish they had done something more daring. If any film needed a twist ending, it was this one.

To answer r107

Dunaway writes that she felt so betrayed on Mommie Dearest. First she went really far over the top in certain scenes like the scrubbing the bathroom floor. She gave all she could and more with the understanding that the director would edit it so that it seemed more realistic. For some reason the director either intentionally or unintentionally let it get campy and she was crushed because she worked so hard on it. (she really did delve into Crawford's psyche and learn about her obsessive compulsive disorder.)

Then she felt more betrayed by the studio because they ran ads calling it "the mother of all movies" or something like that and put no wire hangers!!! In the ad.

Plus as you said her relationship with her boyfriend who had insisted on becoming a producer on it fell apart so I think it is just a painful memory all around for her. She said in the book that people sometimes say "no wire hangers ever" to her and she knows the are joking or being complimentary but the words destroy her soul. I noticed when TCM did an hour long profile of her they skipped the movie totally. (although at the end when they had gone through all her movies and she mostly had positive things to say about them and the people she turned to the audience and said something like I'm giving the impression it was all fun but I've spoken of the bad ones before and I think I've said all I can on them.

Dunaway is ungracious, takes herself too seriously and was the insane terror on Mommie Dearest as she was on all her other film sets. The costume designer Irene Sharaff came out of retirement for the film and ended up walking out of the film, saying she couldn't enter a room to consult with Dunaway unless someone through a raw steak in her cage first.

Dunaway was once a very beautiful woman and a pretty sensitive actress. Mommie Dearest was always going to be camp, she played it that way. Her other explanations are ludicrous. She did a lot of drugs for decades and was a very spoiled woman. She redeemed herself a bit with Barfly, a pretty stellar performance in a film no one wanted to see. That was 30 years ago. Mommie Dearest was a box office hit. She didn't have many. How stupid to not acknowledge it.

[quote] If a male actor is demanding and difficult,hes "eccentric" ,if a female actor is those things,shes a "cunt".

That's just not true.

Work largely dried up for several male actors the way it did for Debra Winger because they've also been such cunts: Val Kilmer, William Hurt, Shia LeBeouf, Alex Pettyfer, Mike Myers...

Thanks, R122. That's interesting that she was counting on the director to pull in her performance in the editing. That seems unusual in filming. I think she is brilliant, however that ended up onscreen.

I re-watched the end of Black Widow. It seems they only had circumstantial evidence against Renee so her confession is what gets her arrested. I guess she blurted it out in shock at seeing the man she thought she had killed. I wondered about the clause in the will that made her the sole inheritor - Paul was a resident of Florida, and according to state law, a spouse has the right to overturn his bequests to the Cancer Foundation - whether she knew that or if it was just lucky.

I am another Black Widow fan. The attraction, contrast, and tension between Russell and Winger is near perfect.

Of course she knew, R126, otherwise there wouldn't have been any point in offing him. Like with the previous husband, she had probably read up on Paul very carefully.

I would have liked there to have been some information at the end about what drove Renee/the killer. What her childhood was like etc.

But what about Winger in Shadowlands? A beautiful performance.

I have to laugh at what Pauline Kael said about Russell's voice - the voice of a sorority girl more than of an actress - but Kael makes an interesting observation that Russell seems to be playing Gloria Grahame with that thin-lipped ice-bitchy petulance.

She was attractive enough, attainable. Plus she was earthy , looked like you could get her in bed easily enough. That was what sold her to the public.

BY MOST ACCOUNTS, MS. Winger behaved well on the set of "Shadowlands," directed by Richard Attenborough.

"It was a love fest," she said, "and I told Tony and Richard we really shouldn't talk about it because it sounds so awful.

"So I said, 'Let's make up some really bad stories. I like to preserve my reputation, so if you guys could talk about how difficult I was, I would really appreciate it.' "

Hated that Jewish cunt with her earthiness and her manly vibe.

Me neither, R120.

No way, R108. Julia Roberts was a star with very limited range. Debra Winger, a very talented actress with top-billing appeal - a star of films with substance, European or arthouse if you will - character-driven films.

R133 is cranky cuz it missed the Nazi rally.

Roberts had great range playing a uniquely desperate and manic quality in Erin Brokovich.

Loved her as Wonder Womans kid sister!

“I want some ice cream!”

She mates. And then she kills.

Debra Winger went to my high school, too, R114! She was a year behind me and I didn't know her, but her picture is in my yearbook. So, yes, she was already in California.

Back to the "car" accident at R41, another correction. Debra was working at Magic Mountain (as was I) as a Troll. "The actress remembers that it was between Christmas and New Year's in 1972 when she sustained a serious on-the-job injury. Seventeen-year-old Debra was being driven to a location in the park in a Cushman vehicle when she "went out the back end, in costume." According to news reports, she was partially paralyzed and temporarily blinded. Her recovery took many months."

I prefer Kip Winger

God G-d I miss Pauline Kael.

[quote] That pic of be-permed Debra at [R52] reminds me of Barbara Hershey. Not exactly a look-alike, but they could've played sisters.

Hershey played her aunt in A Dangerous Woman, so good call on your part R74. Hershey isn’t in this scene, but David Strathairn is and wearing only briefs.

Winger was great in the TV movie “Dawn Anna” which was directed by her husband Arliss Howard. Their son has a supporting role in it too. If you’re a fan it’s well worth checking out.

R142, Kael's older sister was my English teacher in HS in SF. A brilliant teacher.

Agree with Roger Ebert's review of Black Widow:

[quote] What would have been more intriguing? Why not follow a more cynical, truly diabolical course - something inspired by the soul of film noir? Why not have Winger fall completely under the spell of the black widow and stand by while the tycoon is murdered so the two women can live happily ever after? And then end on an eerie note as Winger begins to wonder if Russell can trust her with the secret? That kind of psychological double-reverse would give the actresses something to work with.

The story of "Black Widow," as told, is the kind of shallow, one-dimensional plotting we expect on television, where there are no unpleasant surprises to upset the audience. There are just enough subtle hints in "Black Widow" to suggest that certain more sinister possibilities occurred to Rafelson and Base. But I guess they manfully resisted them and did the safe thing.

She had a early role in "Thank God It's Friday". You can see her dancing in the "Last Dance" video at 2:52.

The correctly duplicitous spouse plays the [italic]Ondine's Curse[/italic] theme from BLACK WIDOW while slowly brushing their hair before a mirror, rouging their nipples, etc.

^^^one of Sami's many conquests was Bardot. Also was with gorgeous Delphine Seyrig for some years, up to her death.

What about the scene when they go scuba diving and Winger runs out of air. Do you think Russell tampered with her supply to give her a scare?

Why the fixation on her crappiest movie. I guess this is a lesbian obsession thread?

No one really wants to discuss WILDER NAPALM....

^ That's because it was terrible.

R73 link doesn't work for me.

How about this?

Debra is an amazing actress and it's pitiful that she's doing The Ranch, because she's more talented than Meryl. Imagine her in Postcards From The Edge, for example. Or The River Wild. Ironweed.

earlier debra and Shirley pic

[quote]Imagine her in Postcards From The Edge, for example.

Well she was the first choice. She should have accepted. I did my best but not being an authentic cocaine addict like her probably limited my realism in the role...but I was still nominated so that is what is important.

I always imagined Jamie Lee Curtis in that, when I read the book.

The part was that of an actress and a woman so Jamie Lee wouldn't have been ideal. How hot a bitch was Shirley Maclaine though? She's never mentioned as one of the great looking woman of film. I think she was so pretty, very sexy well into middle age.

R60 Another vote for "Searching for Debra Winger".

I understand OP, she is talented but there is no warmth there

Well that's kind of the alchemy of her isn't it? Because she is very warm on screen, emotional and passionate and her eyes shine with feeling and her voice crackles with connection. But it's more than a rumor that she's a terrible asshole and disliked by most everyone she's ever worked with. She's bad mouthed them all including most of the ones she fucked. Funny that she and Anthony Hopkins got along because he is pretty close to a fully antisocial personality. She probably could get no reaction from him, I don't know but her work in Shadowlands is beautiful.

Their is a most telling story about Winger. For the hospital room scene in Terms of Endearment, the last moment she looks at Aurora with deep love and some understanding and letting go in her eyes....where we're already crying.....Winger insisted that Maclaine not be present and that each member of the crew walked past her as she was filmed to help her access her feeling of love and saying goodbye. She so hated the actress Shirley Maclaine that she refused to have her present for that scene. So Maclaine's equally thrilling response to realizing that her daughter has passed, that gasp and then the full emotion of it coming over her was done without Winger present too. Art and real emotion are only as compatible as they need to be, because that scene blows people away with how both actresses surprise so late in the story and in how we know them. Fantastic work, beautiful and mysterious. Profoundly moving. These things happen sometimes it's true. But it seems to have happened to Winger a lot. She sure didn't make it easy.

R2, Are you kidding?! The hairline alone looks awful, never mind she looks nothing like Debra Winger!

I like her and Tom Berenger in the suspenseful "Betrayed." DW plays an FBI agent infiltrating a Right-Wing "militia."

she was even good in that movie with B. Hershey where she played disabled/mentally ill woman. Saw it recently, very vulnerable and emotions just flow so naturally in her acting...but I agree with previous poster, perhaps not that way IRL. that’s why they call it acting Darling!!

“Winger, Debra. "Sad, lonely, sort of angry/mean and rather fearsome." Difficult to work with. Switch-hitter. Linked with Timothy Hutton, Bob Kerrey, Nick Nolte, Al Pacino, and John Travolta.”

This infamous photo of Debra in her party days.

Ha ha ...Camel cigs! Who is the guy?

R180 - I bought the DVD of Looking for Debra Winger years ago hen I heard about - in spite of seeing some negative consumer reviews...

Thing is: they were all spot on.

There’s actually only a very little part of the documentary spent looking for Winger - and no real revelation or sense of climax when they find her.

The bulk of the film is interviews with well off mostly B list - but also the odd A lister! - actresses who are all friends and acquaintances, asking them what they thought of Winger - and then about their own experiences. And they go on and on - and on! - and it’s all pretty much the same stories over and over - and they whine and whine and whine about how women have so little power, etc - and it’s ultimateky dull and a bit of a downer.

I can forgive a lot of sins in filmmaking - but don’t bore me! And it really shouldn’t be dull given the caliber of the people involved.

Interestingly - post me too - looking at it now - you’d have to also look at each one of them and wonder if they knew Weinstein - if he or others of his ilk had hit on them - or worse. How they responded and what it meant for their career. They could t say much backthen - but love to see that cast of actresses with a terrific documentary maker get brutally honest about the past now. That would be worth seeing!

But this - not so much.

Wow R162 that hospital scene dish is truly divine. How do you know this? I’m not doubting you at all — if it’s from a book I’d just to pick it up, thanks.

Both actresses were extraordinary in Terms. Master class.

I love the Terms of Endearment scene where Garrett shows up at the hotel after we know Emma is not going to make it. He just says, “Aurora.” She sees him, walks up, and breaks down in his arms. Uugghhh I’m crying as I type.

Winger should have received an Oscar for Terms. If ever a tie was in order, it was for MacLaine and Winger.

pic of R167 is debra with Mike Hendrix at the wrap party for Cannery Row.

Another.

Holly Hunter for The Piano was pretty unstoppable in the awards season so Debra wasn't going to beat her for the 1994 Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Shadowlands.

More about Anthony Hopkins’ anti social personality (disorder?), please.

Same as me- knows how to polish a knob.

Yeah, how did Winger get along with antisocial Hopkins? Maybe they bonded over their mutual dislike of MacLaine?

Has Debra ever commented on the Arquette documentary?

R173 She looks like an even uglier version of Fran Lebowitz there. What a fugly thing she was.

Here she is looking better at the wrap party.

Who would be today’s version of Debra Winger?

Depends, R180. Who is currently the biggest cunt in Hollywood?

Why didn't she reprise her role in the Terms sequel Evening Star?

She is a great actress- of the kind where you never catch her "acting". I gather, however, that was (is?) extremely difficult to work with.

Like any relationship, there are people you just like right away (or not). Debra was an actor I loved from the beginning. Though admittedly, it helps that our introduction was not her career-launching Wonder Woman.

Did anyone see her recent independent film where she and her husband split, only to begin again via affair? I wanted to see it, but didn't and am wondering if anyone else watched it.

It's on Amazon Prime....called THE LOVERS.

It's on my watch list.

Try to stay within the realm of sanity, R178. She looks perfectly good there. She was never ugly by any stretch of the imagination.

"Stay within the realm of sanity."

Too late for that. R178 is already in the realm of Hannity.

th:dr I presume somebody has mentioned the documentary Rosanna Arquettte about her and women in the industry, will answer many of your questions. Great pic, she so looks like Terri Farrell, which is great

R182, the incomparable presence of Juliette Lewis more than made up for Winger’s absence.

She was talented and got that trifecta of Urban Cowboy, An Officer and a Gentleman, and Terms of Endearment within a 4 year span from 1980 to 1983.

Terms really took her over the top in star quality. Then she starred in one box office disappointment after another. She also supposedly turned down a lot of roles that would have been hits, like Broadcast News, Peggy Sue Got Married, Bull Durham, The Fabulous Baker Boys, and A League of Their Own. She shined brightly in the early 1980s, but probably aged out by Hollywood standards in the 1990s.

Too bad. I liked her back in the day. I think if she picked better roles, she may have stretched her career out a bit. But I do believe her when she says she wasn’t mentally strong enough to have a sustained career like Streep.

If you ever get a chance, read the diary of Aaron Latham, co-writer of Urban Cowboy, chronicling the making of the film. Latham is Leslie Stahl’s husband. I was sick with the flu for days and stumbled across an online version many years ago. It’s LONG but full of information about Winger, with whom Latham became friends. He even tells the story of Winger sleeping on the graveyard before the funeral scene. She comes across as a crazy home wrecker with a substance abuse problem. She banged everyone on the film except Latham and Travolta. There are also some pretty obvious hints that Travolta is gay, which we all know now. It’s a good read if you have time.

Outside of Winger's big hits, what is worth watching? Many have recommended Mike's Murder but it is hard to find.

I did enjoy Shadowlands and The Sheltering Sky.

It's sad she has acted in so few films.

^ Rachel Getting Married.

She has a supporting but key (and difficult) role as AnnE Hathaway’s daughter.

The performances in this film are wonderful.

[quote] Rachel Getting Married.

I enjoyed the film but she was probably onscreen for 15 minutes.

I don't understand why chooses to act on a bad Ashton Kutcher TV show. Surely there are some directors/producers willing to give her some more substantial roles?

Maybe it's convenient in terms of her personal life?

For every overrated Meryl Streep and Jessica Lange, there is a Debra Winger and Judy Davis. The Debras and Judys are the real artists.

R191 Everybody Wins, mentioned above, is worth a look.

Allow Debra to answer the question for herself

She would have been GREAT in both Postcards from the Edge and Silkwood. She would have been far more believable as a California gal and a Southwestern hick than Meryl. But Mike Nichols was a star fucker and miscast her twice. Well, three times with Heartburn.

Agreed R198. I like Silkwood, it's one of Meryl's better performances, but Winger would have embodied Karen Fucking Silkwood. Not gum chewing Meryl singing Amazing Grace. The noble poor, corny as fuck.

Debra turned down so many great parts for herself. Mike Nichols would have never cast her. She would have been great in The Graduate too, as the daughter. Time and space travel don't permit that, but Nichols famous criticism to his actors "You are wearing a hat on top of your hat" need never be applied to Winger. (often to Streep)

She didn't respond well to being compared to Bette Davis!?!. Ok, well I get it but it was huge compliment. She didn't take well to much talk about her work but I think she understood her own method. She just couldn't explain her real problems. DW must have been a colossal case but she never was fired, so she did her difficult work. It can't all be bad feeling, everyone smartens up or dies with time. I don't think she cares about what could have been BUT that's where she's wrong. She was ungrateful. It matters.

Debra Winger was (is?) crazy. Also a cokehead. That's why her movie career dried up. Nobody was anxious to work with her. I don't think she was offered many major roles in movies that turned out to be big hits, although I did hear she was considered for the role of the psychotic Alex in "Fatal Attraction." Too bad she didn't play that role; I think she would have been perfect as the wild haired, totally crazy scorned woman.

She was more "sexy" than beautiful. I guess her wild curly hair was due to a perm. It was one of the things that made her sexy.

I heard she and Travolta fucked during the making of Urban Cowboy. When asked, all Travolta said was "uh, we went out." A Vanity Fair article stated that Winger made a point to sleep with every actor she worked with. Supposedly Richard Gere was one who turned her down, which made her hate his guts.

[quote] I heard she and Travolta fucked during the making of Urban Cowboy.

Well, we know this is a big, fat lie!

Winger really made bad career choices. In 1987 alone she was the first choice for 2 of the Best Actress Nominees (Fatal Attraction and Broadcast News) and also Nuts which was a Golden Globe nominee for Streisand. Broadcast News she got pregnant for but the others she just turned down.

As to the hospital scene in Terms. MacLaine details it in one of her books. She said she did it by at first feeling exhilarated that they were done filming and then crying over the conflict she had had with Winger.

MacLaine and Jeff Daniels were a united front though. She speaks highly of him to this day. Winger clashed with Daniels too and was really hard on the inexperienced actress who played Patsy.

I saw James L. Brooks speak about the film once and he said the hospital scenes were very tough to do and Winger was really hard to deal with. (but he hired her again for Broadcast News surprisingly.)

No one is detailed the A League of their Own Drama? ok here goes, this could be a Feud series. Call Ryan Murphy.

Penny Marshall and Winger were friends. They wanted to work together. They were going to do Peggy Sue Got Married but Winger had all these demands and Marshall stood by her and both of them were replaced.

So then years later they are going to do A League of their Own. Winger again starts making demands. Marshall stands by her initially but then doesn't want to lose the film and agrees to her contract. Winger is then left alone with her demands (and furious at Marshall.) The studio very publically gives Winger until five PM on Friday to sign her contract. She didn't. What Winger didn't know was that the studio had gone to Geena Davis (hot off Thelma and Louise) and said could you step into a film on short notice. She said yes. So when the Friday deadline passed and she didn't show up.....they put Geena Davis on a plane and she took over the role.

I have a foggy memory of her hosting SNL probably in the late 80’s and at the end of her beginning monologue she says “also, I think I’m a lesbian”. I swear. Someone find it please and you’ll be the hero of this thread, I’m too tired, going to bed.

I know it's revered on Datalounge but I don't blame any actress for turning down Fatal Attraction. It's a terrible film made to make women look psycho and even at the time was reviewed as an AIDS allegory warning finger. Don't fuck around on wifey or all hell will rain down on you and modern hell will be personified by this character Alex who loves opera and wild perms, boiled bunnies and sex in the sink. It's a dumb fucking movie.

Winger was a mess and a mean woman. Dumb it seems about a lot of things. I don't have to excuse her because I don't know her. I hesitate to call people crazy. Cocaine increases paranoia. But when Maclaine referred to Winger as "turbulent" in her Oscar speech, Shirley was criticized. What kinder word for Winger was there that also touched on her great talent?

Winger is different from most stars in that you really get the sense she does it because she enjoys it. She doesn't NEED anyone, or anything.

If she likes the project, she'll do it. If she doesn't, she doesn't.

We're so used to seeing performers whore themselves to the ends of the earth for just any role that Winger's lack of slavishness seems strange...when really, it's just adult.

MacLaine said "turbulent brilliance" which Winger smirked and sort of shook her head at. She knew it sounded like praise to the naked ear but there was also a cut in there.

the Timothy Hutton marriage always seemed odd. Why'd he date that hot box of crazy?

Buck never would have married Debra Winger.

I love Debra Winger too but it's no secret she is a tall, tall, glass full of crazy and nasty. Richard Gere tells a story about running into her at a party and approaching her. Asking if she was still running around saying terrible things about him. Miss Winger looked up at him, said "yes", and walked away. Debra Winger, Babs Streisand, Miss Julia Roberts and Madonna would be an absolute riot in the same room. Out and proud cunts all of them.

I liked when Debra Winger puzzled of MacLaine, "She acts like she invented reincarnation."

So, she was the Asia Argento of the 80's?

Liza gives her trademark spaz harumph/laugh [italic] ("Ghuu-hu!") [/italic] at the beginning of Rock's speech introducing Best Actress.

It's like she's spitting out a grape she's choked on.

Debra won't call her, surely,

r213 "The woman who winsche the Oschar is schimply the one whosche performansche has pleasched the votersh a little more than the othersche."

For as long as I can recall, every year someone starts a thread on Debra Winger, as if it has never been done before. She gave some great performances 35 years ago, but then created her own demise. I don't find anything admirable about her

[quote] I don't find anything admirable about her

Except that she can actually [italic]act.[/italic]

But who cares about that little detail?

I don't. She is good maybe once a decade at best now

She wasn't on SNL in the 80s.

I am early mid age and I never cease to amaze how often Liza was part of anything. She shows up everythefuckwhere on DL clips! What a ridiculous woman though apparently a very nice person. Her elocution and blush hurts me very deeply.

Shirley Maclaine's Oscar speech is wonderful, she looks great - what a moment for a 50 year old who looks great and youthful but chooses to look like a glamorous woman instead of a sexy bitch.

Turbulent brilliant Debra Winger was more than a remark or a put down. MacLaine was a seeking intelligent woman who might have called Winger a crazy cunt behind the scenes. Who didn't? But in that moment, a year or more after filming she was just being honest.

Shirley understood her part and her director, that's all an actor can sign up for. Maclaine is really astounding in Terms of Endearment. She is nothing like the women in her older films and nothing like what we even expect from scene to scene of Aurora. It's a great performance that should be more respected. Too bad she turned it into a road show...

R186 Try to stay in the realm of reality(even though you might be from Uranus), she was never a beauty deary. Not ever. Add in her cuntiness and she was one big fug on the inside and she was nothing on the outside.OUCH!

If you pull up old Oscar clips Liza is very often the presenter for some reason.

Here is Shirley five years earlier presenting Best Actress. She looks beautiful for 45. Better than Fonda.

An interesting example of Winger's ability is seen in this scene. She's natural, spontaneous...she is [italic]there.[/italic.]

Gere is just going through the standard, shallow, movie star motions.

There's a difference.

Beauty isn't objective, no matter how much you want it to be, R221. I find her beautiful. I like that it's not a cookie cutter beauty, either. There are many kinds of beauty in the world, and sometimes it's more the whole package than individual features.

She comes off well in this Barbara Walters interview.

R233 Her acting in An Officer and a Gentleman is a wonder. She does so many things in a short amount of time. She really deserved her nomination for this.

I think Winger said she had a hell of a time getting Gere to look at her in their scenes, which tells you what she expected from a co-star in a love story, and also about his narcissistic acting. And that's why she bad-mouthed him.

She also bad-mouthed Robert Redford after Legal Eagles, calling him The Un-Natural, which is a play on his role in The Natural. The thing about Winger is that she is a very funny lady.

She hated John Malkovitch in Sheltering Sky too.

Bet she didn't insist on fucking him

I am willing to bet that Winger had good insight into most of her costars and read them quite well. But she did it out loud while working with them and that's not only unprofessional but very unwise. I imagine with MacLaine she could see that Shirley was determined to take the spotlight and the movie away from Debra's Emma, and the actress too. I am guessing but it seems right. Winger was right about Gere, he was out of her league, the roles were reversed for that film. You can cast ordinary girl beats the odds and wins over the blue blood or officer, but Winger is needy, vulnerable and irresistible in that part. No half awake man would let that woman go. The plot is very sexist and she plays her part but puts some energy against it that's not even in the script. A small confidence that she'll do alright no matter - the intellectual and sexual brag. That's not regular acting, she's clean and sexy but not really beautiful - she's amazing and a force.

Still, you cant compete with everyone in a collaborative environment all the damn time so it speaks to Winger's great gift as an actress that she appears so sympathetically connected to her love interests and familial costars, even when she was in deep conflict with most of them. The Black Widow movie was an interesting inflection...too bad it wasn't better. I never wanted to see the movie she did with Billy Crystal but the clip posted upthread made me want to. She is funny in that scene. Forget Paris, who knew?

Winger deserves a great comeback role though I don't know what it could be. Even that terrible movie that Streep did - Rickie and The Flash....I don't wish it on anyone but how much better would Winger have been? Or in the obvious August Osage County...she is a bit young for it but she would have made it work. Winger inhabits every role first as a breathing human being. That's too boring for some but she could play a great villain too. The next Nurse Ratched. Truth is there is not one none goofy starring script for a woman of her temperament and age and that includes television, HBO and Netflix. She was very good in Rachel getting Married but she deserves Still Alice or Lars Von Trier or Three Billboards in Ebbing or a Paul Thomas Anderson part. Not likely. Debra Winger should beg to appear in Orange is the New Black or Big Little Lies but she never will. So every once in a while we gonna talk about her here. She's very special. I wonder if she knows how much her fans love her work?

R229, I'd call that good taste on her part.

anyone see the play she did on Broadway? I know it was a big flop but how was she on stage?

Her output in the late eighties was really poor. She was on top of the world with Terms and then it was one bad film after another for almost 10 years.

I forget how good looking Gere was when he was young, R223.

[quote]I am willing to bet that Winger had good insight into most of her costars and read them quite well. But she did it out loud while working with them

Don't you wish she had worked with Julia Roberts?

[quote] I am willing to bet that Winger had good insight into most of her costars and read them quite well. But she did it out loud while working with them

Ehhh. Debra sounded like a real pill. You can only keep clashing with every single of your co-stars or co-workers so often until it becomes apparent that you are the one with the problem.

Of Malkovich she said he aspired to be a runway model more than an actor, which is pretty funny.

I saw a pirated dvd of her 2012 Broadway play The Anarchist. It is a dull exposition- heavy piece which she couldn't bring to life. Somehow Patti Lupone came off better but she had the showier role and she is a Mamet veteran which probably helped. The play closed early after only 17 performances.

I read an interview with her, and I think that she ultimately got along with Redford...it was Ivan Reitman, the director of Legal Eagles, who she came to despise. Apparently, Redford didn’t think highly of him either. No mention of what she thought of Darryl Hannah!

She is a great actor but impossible to work with. Why do some actors ruin their careers by being obnoxious?

obnoxious

I think debra had a point about Madonna's stunt casting in A League of Their Own - it's an Elvis movie! - but maybe they might have got along. Or maybe she knew she wouldn't be able to get past that idea and not give her a chance so it was better to withdraw from the film.

I thought that Leonard Lopate interview was interesting. Winger said that people always mention the films she turned down but neglect to mention that she did other films instead. In some cases, it was scheduling conflict and she couldn’t be two places at once, and in other cases, she didn’t have the foresight to see how the film she was turning down would actually turn out.

She was actually hot to me in Urban Cowboy & I never think women are hot so that was something. Maybe it was that “masculine energy” some of you all mention (altho IDK what that means).

But as for Richard Gere DAMN he was so fucking hot when he was young. Fuuuuuck.

R21 said it better than I ever could.

And that whole sequence with the Tuaregs in The Sheltering Sky has got to be one of the most erotic things I've ever seen on screen, and I don't even like Bertolucci.

*R231, damn it

R227 Richard Gere is not an actor, or wasn't when he was younger (he's improved over the years). He was a breathtaking model/classical dancer type who condescended to doing movies. I could watch pictures of him when his hair was still dark, all day.

It seems like the two she had the most conflict with were an arrogant nutbag (MacLaine) and a narcicist pinup (Gere), so, that doesn't really make her crazy, to me.

Really, R249? Even the lovely Lynda Carter had nothing particularly nice to say about her.

So what? It's not like they feuded.

I think Winger said Carter had been very insistent that they not have the same kind of eye makeup. That may have been the whole extent of their conflict, which sounds 1-sided..

Even Debra acknowledges that nobody likes her.

Debra being a cunt on the View regarding Bette Davis:

WHOOPI: Debra, when you first started out, you were compared to a young Bette Davis. Didn't that make you feel GOOD? DEBRA: Actually, no Whoopi - it didn't. And if I ever end up on the Tonight Show in my 80s wearing a buttoned hat, feel free to shoot me.

Bitch wishes she was as remembered as Bette Davis.

Some people just can't handle Debra Winger...she's a straight-shooter.

At the time Annie Leibovitz photographed her, Winger had a lot of tabloids speculating about who she was seeing. So the actress thought it would be funny to have the portrait be of her making out with her dog, like "The Truth Is [italic] Revealed!" [/italic]

That's actually a witty idea, but people were like "?!?!?!?!" She was maybe a bit ahead of her time.

That said, she was a talented cunt. Her and that other talented cunt, Judy Davis.

A basic bitch in the looks dept. with stellar acting ability. A paradox. Just STFU and put it all up on the screen honey.

OMG could u imagine the film set gossip of a movie starring Judy Davis, Debra Winger and Cybill Shepherd?

R257, don’t forget me!

She comes across as a bitch but she's talented and cares about her work. If she were a man, nobody would even dare to call her out, they'd say she was a consummate professional and just dedicated.

What R259 said.

Male actors can be cunts, too, r259. In fact, there are plenty of them who've had more than their share of threads on here.

[quote]R259 She comes across as a bitch but she's talented and cares about her work. If she were a man, nobody would even dare to call her out, they'd say she was a consummate professional and just dedicated.

Thanks for bringing that part up. I shied away from it, so as not to set off the I-Have-Mommie-Issues crowd.

Another vote for R259

I vote for R259 as well--though I am thoroughly weirded out by that dog photo.

[quote]r264 I vote for [R259] as well--though I am thoroughly weirded out by that dog photo.

The thing is, though, if Will Ferrell did it, everyone would think it was funny.

To her credit, one interviewer asked Winger what the worst thing about being a star was, and she said, [italic]"Having things you said when you were young follow you around FOREVER."

Maybe she dislikes Davis because she is friends with Dunaway.

Still, since Davis said kind things about her she could have dialed it back a bit on the cunt-o-meter in that interview with Whoopi.

She's a nasty cunt that no one wants to work with, whatever her sex. Washed-up, a has-been. Dead outside of a DL thread.

[quote]If you pull up old Oscar clips Liza is very often the presenter for some reason

Because Liza was a big star and a well known name at that time?. She was also considered Hollywood royalty.

I worked as a background actor on The Ranch last year, and Debra said hi to me first, and had a relaxed energy. She even zoned out while looking at me. I wouldn't call her a "nasty cunt" like others have written here.

I loved her comment about Bette Davis on The View, it made me laugh out loud. She was so on point. In her last decade of life, Bette Davis was an attention whore who canvassed the talkshows out of desperation to have validated her inflated sense of self-importance. Debra represents everything that is against what Bette Davis stood for, with all of that star bullshit.

Bette earned her stripes. She is a legend. Debra, no.

Bette Davis' films haven't aged well. People regard them now as melodramatic soap operas, which they essentially were. Debra Winger was an actress way ahead of her time and so real. Put them together on screen in both of their 'primes', people would laugh at Bette popping eyes and scenery chewing as Debra steals the scene with a simple look of utter indifference and disgust. Fuck Bette Davis.

Glad Debra is working again. I was so sorry when she took that exile from the film industry. She has said she left voluntarily but the offers might’ve dried up (even though she was coming off an Oscar nomination around this time). Producers might’ve felt life is too short to deal with her.

R272 = Debra Winger!

Bette was a STAR. Debra is a nothing- less than nothing.

70 years and onward, people remember actresses like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as Hollywood legends.

Debra Winger? Not so much.

No mention of Debra's hot husband Arliss Howard?

Shirley MacLaine sometimes comes across as bitchy BUT... I once sat with her on a flight and she talked my ear off. Just fascinating and nice. I think I won her over because I asked about her new age stuff first. (I had had Alexander Technique in college so I knew about chakras.) She detailed me on that and then on harnessing power of the universe. I think I had won her over and she felt safe and then I started dishing about her films. I didn't dare ask about Winger. But we discussed Steel Magnolias. (she liked everyone and thought Sally Field was the consummate actor and great to everyone on the set as the leader of the cast. We talked about Streisand a bit because she came up because she was going on about how the time of your birth is a moment when you can harness the universe's energy the most to get what you want for the next year. Streisand and she share a birthday which she mentioned. I then asked about her trouble getting nominated for Best Director Oscars and Shirl said she think that had less to do with her being a woman and more about how hard to get a long with Streisand was when she first hit Hollywood.

r276, people remember them as arrogant Hollywood narcissists and grotesques. That's why Baby Jane is their legacy. People remember Debra Winger as a real actress.

She's probably mellowed a bit over the years. She IS 63 years old now. But during her youth and heyday she was a terror. If what Shirley MacLaine said about her in her memoir "My Lucky Stars" is true she was crazy as shit. MacLaine said that Winger accused her of not hitting her mark on the set and when MacLaine said she knew marks when she saw them Winger said "Good, How's this for a mark?" Then she "turned around, walked away from me, lifted her skirt slightly, looked over her shoulder, bent over and farted in my face." MacLaine replied "do you always talk with your mouth full?"

Winger and Jack Nicholson had an affair during the making of "Terms of Endearment." They both loved to raise hell. During the filming of a scene where Nicholson and MacLaine are in bed together, Winger was licking up the the legs of both MacLaine and Nicholson. Just wanting to get the scene done, MacLaine endured Winger's antics, and finally Jim Brooks said "cut." She kicked Winger away, who said "you shouldn't knock it if you haven't tried it." Then she grabbed MacLaine's legs and held them apart under her nightgown while Nicholson pinned her arms above her head. Then Winger started licking up MacLaine's leg again. MacLaine grabbed Nicholson by the balls and squeezed and said "tell her to get off me." He did and Winger relented. Whew. Just fun and games on a movie set, I guess. But by the standards of today it would probably be considered a sexual assault. Anyway, it just goes to show what a nutcase Winger was, and Nicholson, too.

Wow. Terms of Harassment.

R257 I would much rather watch from the sidelines a set consisting of Debra, Ms Babs Streisand, Miss Julia Roberts and La Dunaway. Imagine the cunting that would be getting thrown around on the minute. Invite Madonna for a cameo and you have a jackpot of mean, nasty out and proud cunts. On a side note I too have heard the story Gere tells of running into Deb at a party and approaching her asking her if she was still running around saying terrible things about him. To which she looked up, replied "yes" and walked away. She's also on record saying she was repulsed kissing him.

Jim Brooks should have told Emma to cut the crap.

Very unprofessional behavior on her and Garret's part.

There is a youtube video where MacLaine talks about Terms to some NYC film society. She says Brooks was directing for the first time and a little afraid to take full control. She says Jeff Daniels (whose name she can't remember calls him MR. Newsroom guy) was a lovely guy.

She also says one day she was so mad she just left the set and went to the airport.

I can't wait for part two to John Lithgow's biography. He ends part 1 saying how he would soon travel for two weeks work on what is the most successful and acclaimed film he was ever in but was in utter chaos when he arrived on the set. He seems to promising juicy details.

An issue of the now defunct film magaine Premire from 2000, had an interview with Debra Winger who had made a film for years.

The reasons were two-fold. She wasn't offered very much and what was offered didn't interest her. During that whole late 1990s period she only saw three films with a character she would have liked to have played had she been offered. They were Frances McDormand's role in Fargo, Sigourney Weaver's in The Ice Storm and Sissy Spacek's in The Straight Story. They are all great in their respective roles, but I imagine Winger would have done each of those roles justice.

was Winger the second choice for Terms of Endearment?

On the dvd commentary Brooks talks about how one actress turned the role down because of the "here comes the bride" wedding night scene.

I know Sissy Spacek turned it down but she doesn't sound like somebody who would turn a role down for an implied oral sex scene. I mean she did Carrie and 3 Women.

Was anyone else offered it. Sounds like someone with a very wholesome image in 1983. Ideas?

[quote]R282 ...a set consisting of Debra, Ms Babs Streisand, Miss Julia Roberts and La Dunaway. Imagine the cunting that would be getting thrown around. Invite Madonna for a cameo and you have a jackpot of mean, nasty out and proud cunts.

The salary and billing negotiations would take years, and then half of them would pull out at the last minute.

But we could start small: what about Debra Winger and [italic] Debra Messing [/italic] in something?

That would be a super-awkward BLOODBATH.

Jim Brooks said Kim Basinger was originally supposed to play Patsy. I would have liked that!

Sissy Spacek was first choice for Terms. She looks like MacLaine's daughter and the only reason she turned it down was she had just given birth and wanted to spend time with her baby and not on a film set. Mary Steenburgen was also offered the role but I can't imagine she would knock it back for an implied oral sex scene either.

How would you like to kiss a crazy actress with a runny nose?

Winger had amazing charisma but wasn't a fantastic actress by any means. She was underwhelming in emotional scenes, never attempted a shift In persona (tonal shift, accent, wig, etc) and basically played herself.

I remember being disappointed by her big crying scene in Terms of Endearment. As wonderfully spontaneous and charismatic as she was, I didn't buy her at all.

She had great potential and a few sensational moment, but that's it.

Appearing on an episode of Law & Order in 2010.

[quote]R281 She had great potential and a few sensational moments, but that's it.

Your ASS had great potential and a few sensational moments, but that's it.

R293 Oh, Debbie, relax. Besides, aren't you exhausted with your own acerbic fumes with nothing to show for them?

[quote]I remember being disappointed by her big crying scene in Terms of Endearment.

which scene is that?

R295 When she says good bye to her kids. It was like watching a kid play pretend. You can justify it, which I did because I love the movie, by chalking up her character to not being the emotional type but.... Yeah, no.

Apparently, Shirl was disappointed by the big leg-licking scene. Rat Pack never tried shit like that on her.

Winger was also first choice for "Music Box" which Jessica Lange snatched up and was Oscar nominated for.

actually I don't think she cries much at all in that scene r296

I liked her acting when she was saying goodbye to her kids in Terms because she saved the tears for when they left. She was being strong for them. Debra was PERFECT as Emma. She was Emma Greenway Horton in all the ways Mia Farrow was Rosemary Woodhouse. It was the perfect marriage of an actor with a character. It's irrelevant if she never followed it up with the same triumph. She achieved something remarkable.

R299 She's supposes to be. She sniffles, contorted her face and modifies her voice. The only problem: No Tears. Lol.

I still think she's fantastic in the movie, but I don't consider her amazing and nowhere near as brilliant as MacLaine.

I couldn't stand Shirley in this movie, she was so shrill and unappealing.

Debra's instagram account. She's very warm and likes many of the comments. I LOVE her.

Well R275, Debra got a few things that Davis never had: a loving husband who's by her side for more than two decades and two sons that love and respect her.

OMG i love Debra r303 but I would never try to interact with her, she intimidates me. Seems like the kind of person who finds you shallow if you praise her. I'm content to admire from afar.

r304, BURN!!!! That was the mic drop. You know those bitter queens identify with Bette Davis because they are as miserable and toxic as she was.

This is bugging me. Who was a wholesome America's Sweetheart type of the early 80s? Julia Robers, Sandra Bullock and Meg Ryan hadn't arrived yet.

The anti Davis posters are whiny ants scuttling around a colossus. Davis is acknowledged as one of the best screen actresses of the 20th century.

r308, a colossus of camp. Do you think anybody takes her seriously outside of a gaggle of elder queens?

R291 - She HAS done different roles. with accents and wigs, if that is how you define what acting versatility is.

Teresa Ganzel, R307

The 80's version was a teen. Molly Ringwald. Deb was a leading lady in the same way as those others but was a better actress and made better films. She also didn't play cutesy roles.

Debra made some interesting comments on that radio interview. like how she only wanted to work once a year or once every 2 years, and just because a film is successful is not a reason to want to be in it.

R307 Marsha Mason and Goldie Hawn in their cheesiest stuff. They laughed, they cried.

[quote]R294 Oh, Debbie, relax. Besides, aren't you exhausted with your own acerbic fumes with nothing to show for them?

Look, Shirl, I know actresses from your generation practically had each other's flesh under your fingernails from clawing and competing with each other, but that's not my scene.

Now go home an' get your fuckin' shine box.

#BlessedBe

[quote] Well [R275], Debra got a few things that Davis never had: a loving husband who's by her side for more than two decades and two sons that love and respect her.

Only a stupid frau would think something this stupid, and say it out loud like it's some big insult. Frau logic!

[quote]and two sons that love and respect

three sons. Any easy way to remember it is it is the same as how many Oscars I have.

[quote]R218 Only a stupid frau would think something this stupid, and say it out loud like it's some big insult. Frau logic!

Not really. One of Davis' autobiographies was called THE LONELY LIFE.

Shirley MacLaine burns into your memory in Terms of Endearment. Every scene and line is memorable.

I liked Debra's work before Terms better - especially Officer and a Gentleman.

[quote]R319 Shirley MacLaine burns into your memory in Terms of Endearment. Every scene and line is memorable.

But not necessarily in a good way.

I kind of can't stand her! She's so smugly arrogant...but not in an intriguing or mysterious way. She's just nakedly tinny and abrassive.

R320 And that's exactly why she's brilliant in the film. She Yamaha Aurora as she should be played.

The only movies I could stand Shirley in were "The Children's Hour" and "Desperate Characters", where she sidelined her trademark kookiness and played effectively against type.

I like her in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY and THE TURNING POINT...and that's about it.

[quote]R321 And that's exactly why she's brilliant in the film. She plays Aurora as she should be played.

But that's how she played just about everything once she hit 40. It wasn't a "choice", just a default.

Shirley spoiled Terms for me. I wanted to see her character get cancer and die (preferably in the film's first 15 minutes), not Debra's.

[quote] No mention of Debra's hot husband Arliss Howard?

I think it's just you and me.

She looks like. Jewish Women’s studies professor these days. But she does seemed to have mellowed out. Unlike Miss Dunaway.

Jennifer Jones owned the rights to the novel for a while, but couldn't get financing for it with herself starring.

Jones was no trailblazer as an actress, but I'd prefer watching her in it than the grating MacLaine.

I'd prefer watching Shirley Jones in it.

Sweet Debra...

Terms was too cis-gender and not intersectional enough.

Emma should have been played by a Trans actress in order to more accurately depict American life.

Wow....you're a RIOT!

In the remake, Flap is a transwoman now called Flaps.

She seems to be close to her family and seems happy.

Me after reading r332

Anne Bancroft's reaction to the news that James L Brooks is choosing Shirley MacLaine over her for Terms:

It's interesting I blocked R332, and then R334 (repling to and praising its own post) disappeared as well.

Pathetic.

R335 Anne Bancroft is very gifted, but she doesn't really have a light enough touch for that role.

Bancroft would have had trouble seeming southern

R335, thanks for the reminder of how gorgeous she was.

R322, I thought she was great in "Some Came Running" and good in "The Apartment." About 40 years ago I had a friend in NY who was a devotee of some medium called Ramtha. Once we went to a presentation in a church basement, and Shirl was in the audience.

Comparing Bette Davis to Debra Winger is like apples to oranges. Film acting has been evolving since it inception, and the great performances of one era don’t usually work when envisioned in another.

I recently watched Now, Voyager starring Bette Davis on Filstruck. Neither the melodramatic script nor Davis’s performance would be considered acceptable to a contemporary audience. Yet Davis holds the screen the entire film. She is vulnerable, frustrated, angry, and sorrowful, sometimes by turns in the space of a single scene. Her communicating of these shifts might seem theatrical or misinterpreted as camp today, but she was on top of her game for the acting style of that day.

If we transplanted Winger into the 1930s or ‘40s, she would probably come off as slovenly at best. Her naturalism and superb connection with other actors would create a jarring dissonance.

And while Winger is less a star than Bette Davis, but that doesn’t make her any more - or less - a film actress.

Both actresses do share a notorious reputation for being tough and outspoken. But Winger seems to be unprofessional to boot. The comments upthread about her being blacklisted because she is all that and not a man but a woman don’t really take into account her stream of very personal critiques of actors she has worked with made very publicly. Her comments aren’t about making work better; they are mocking or devaluing people. She comes off as more turbulent- and petty - than brilliant, to pick a couple descriptors from MacLaine.

Bette Davis has well-known feuds as well, but most of her battles make more sense than Winger’s.

I wouldn’t want to have ri work with either one, but I’d gladly watch them in almost any film.

R340, on the contrary, Davis was known as the total pro. Knew her lines, knew the camera angles and lights. She came in and did her job. Winger is of a different generation, yes, but she was very unprofessional as noted in the numerous posts about her erratic behavior onset.

Bancroft could play southern Bronx.

[quote]r340 I wouldn’t want to have to work with either one, but I’d gladly watch them in almost any film.

Very astute post, and I agree with much of it.

I think one trait they share in their approach is a lack of standard movie star vanity, in that they seem less concerned with looking conventionally beautiful than simply conveying emotion. They come across as willing to just throw themselves into it rather than pose for camera angles. There is also a "live wire" quality about both of them. They are just fluidly "there" in ways many other screen actors are not. It is a very rare gift.

I say 'seem" because all actors are to some extent vain, but these two appear to be less burdened with it than others. They are not afraid to get their hands dirty.

R342 - or the Great Lady.

Good mom.

Nice.

I find it interesting that everything the Bette Davis fans in this thread commend in their idol as a virtue, they revile in Debra as a vice. What gives?

R346 shouldn’t that pic alone earn most of the ire of DL?

Actually I think it’s kind of refreshing...obviously a ton of actors are Jewish but you very rarely see any who are actuslly observant. Good for her.

[quote] And that whole sequence with the Tuaregs in The Sheltering Sky has got to be one of the most erotic things I've ever seen

That was a rape, you monster.

I agree, R348

R348 Was she in the Israeli Army or still not blooded?

Deb is a Valley Girl! She loves candles and singing! Hannukah bush and blue lights on the house.

Bette wasn't crazy or a coke freak. Most actors liked working with her.

Ha R353! Just ask Joan Crawford, Miriam Hopkins, Karen Black, Faye Dunaway, Errol Flynn, John Huston, Celeste Holm, Glenn Ford, George Sanders, Susan Hayward, Lilian Gish, William Wyler, Joan Collins, Leslie Howard, Margareth Leighton, Jack Warner, B. D.Hyman and all the other people she feuded with. She wasn't a cokehead, but that woman was a mean alcoholic! Bette Davis was no walk in the park either...

I re-watched An Officer and a Gentleman. OMG Richard Gere used the C word to a female (not Debra). I don't know if it was such a big deal then as it seems to be now.

R238 Sophie Marceau said that Malkovich thinks he is a intellectual but he is just weird! Sophie topped Winger with the one.

Listening to Malkovich butchering the French language is grueling.

R200 I have a new found respect for Richard Quere. Anyone that rejected her is a hero in my book. He could have done much better than the then very blase' looking and irritating Winger.

The upthread post that mentioned Debra Winger’s comment about Bette Davis on “The View” prompted me to check out the video on YouTube. Yes, Winger makes the crack about Davis wearing button hat on “The Tonight Show”, but she preceded it by stating how flattered she was by Davis’s comment and how much she admired many of her performances.

I also watched her Barbara Walters interview (too much free time, I know!) and she was very terse about Richard Gere. I know she’s gone on the record and elaborated about her distaste for Don Simpson and (if memory serves) Taylor Hackford, but what happened with her and Gere on “An Officer and a Gentleman”?

Is this the button hat?

Debra was hilarious. "Please just put a gun to my temple if I end up on Johnny Carson in a button hat."

What a little cunty guttersnipe Winger is. Bette Davis was an icon and Debra Winger is a fucking long forgotten trivia question. How tacky of that bitch.

Glad to hear she gave Miss D. her due diligence,

I liked the buttoned hat, it was totally 80's. Bette championed this designer Patrick Kelly who died a year after her of AIDS.

The (other) Nanny wearing Patrick Kelly.

Good actress, easy on the eye and great voice.

R359 I remember her saying something like most of those people (ie Don Simpson) were dead so she really doesn’t give a shit what she says about them. Her bitching about every single costar was tiresome, but she was right to call those fuckers out. They were truly just the sleaziest most horrible people. That goes for Robert Evans too.

Bette wore those button outfits a lot during her final years. She was wearing one when I saw her at dinner with Robert Osborne.

Debra is a cunt.

Some interesting Winger quotes here!

Celeste Holm on Bette Davis' rudeness and lack of professionalism. So anybody trying to slate Debra for it whilst praising Bette, wake up to yourselves!

Bette Davis is still remembered and probably will be for another 100 years.

Debra Winger is already a footnote.

I listened to part of that radio interview linked above - she really imagines herself to be much smarter than she is.

Celeste Holm is one of the most notorious cunts in show business. A real pot meet kettle. She was derisively known as Celestial Holm because she felt she was so grand. One of her last projects was this dilly where she was billed as "Academy Award Winner Celeste Holm" The movie starred her, Richard Pryor Jr. Doug Wilson from Trading Spaces, Randy Jones from the Village People, Wendy Kaufman, the Snapple Lady, and Malan Breton from Project Runway. Talk about a star studded line up.

Forgot to add that Debts "introduced" Lucie Arnaz's daughter, yes, Lucy's granddaughter, Katherine Luckinbill.

Agreed, R372, Celeste Holm always gave off a kind of condescending attitude in the interviews I’ve seen.

R369 Didn't Bette give praise to Joan Crawford on her professionalism on Baby Jane? No matter how much Joan tried to screw over Bette she still gave props to Joan for knowing her lines and showing up on time.

Debra Winger is not someone you can call a footnote. She holds a level of nostalgia for audiences that grew up in the 80s the same way Julia has for audiences that grew up in the 90s. They were big time female movie stars when that breed was becoming obsolete. Obviously Debra never got to a Roberts level though.

"Just ask Joan Crawford, Miriam Hopkins, Karen Black, Faye Dunaway, Errol Flynn, John Huston, Celeste Holm, Glenn Ford, George Sanders, Susan Hayward, Lilian Gish, William Wyler, Joan Collins, Leslie Howard, Margareth Leighton, Jack Warner, B. D.Hyman and all the other people she feuded with."

Joan Crawford was crazy., So is B.D. Hyman. As for the others you mentioned...well, I don't think Bette Davis was great friends with any of them, but so what. Bette Davis was a professional. She showed up on time and knew her lines and gave a good performance. So what if she wasn't exactly "nice." She did her job. And she was considered "difficult" because she railed against being forced to be in movies that were crap. But she never behaved like a crazy woman, which is what Winger frequently did. Winger was on drugs and mentally ill. That's why she got such a bad reputation, which she deserved.

To the poster up thread. Deb Messing wouldn't stand a chance against Winger. DW would eat her alive. At least the 4 other cunts would give her shit right back.

Debra Messing is a great humanitarian and a beautiful actress.

R377 - you should listen to what Vincent Sherman has to say about Davis on Mr. Skeffington. She did 'behave like a crazy woman' and was so bad he wanted off the film.

That turned out to be an interesting/touching story at R368. Thanks for posting it.

Bette had a career that latest as long as Debra's age now.

Let that sink in.

Officer and a Gentleman was actually on Ovation last night. I watched most of it. I’ve actually grown to prefer Wingers performance in this to Terms. Maybe it’s just the casting - she’s much more of a true natural fit here. I always thought she was somewhat miscast in Terms.

Regardless her Oscar nom was totally deserved. She was much better than she had to be.

You’re quite welcome, R381 — it went in an unexpected direction and it turned it to be quite touching indeed.

And that Winger was ever interested in doing “Perfect” attests to her loyalty to James Bridges — or she hadn’t read the script!

I re-watched Shadowlands. Winger was good but Anthony Hopkins was really the best thing about it. I'm surprised he wasn't Oscar nominated too, but then I see he was the same year for The Remains of the Day.

I still remember Pauline Karl's review of Legal Eagles and her frustration with the waste of Winger's gifts and urging her readers to watch Mike's Murder. Kael thought Winger could "flood" a character.

The first time I saw Mike's Murder I thought it was a dud. I re-watched it and it's fine until the climax when James Bridges goes overboard with close-ups. Winger plays a character that isn't very verbal but she is photographed beautifully. Bridges also lovingly photographs the ass of the actor who plays Mike (Mark Keyloun).

WTF. Winger, Streisand, Roberts and Dunaway would be the nastiest bitchiest set ever. I see what the poster was going for. The biggest bitches of the 60s, 70's, 80's and 90's in the same room. It would be fun to watch but fuck would There be come cunting going down.

[quote]r375 Didn't Bette give praise to Joan Crawford on her professionalism on Baby Jane? No matter how much Joan tried to screw over Bette she still gave props to Joan for knowing her lines and showing up on time.

That's because she had to say SOMETHING. Davis stressed the good points because she wasn't about to publicly detail Crawford's offensive stuff...

Knowing your lines and showing up on time are the BASICS of any acting job. No prize for doing what is required of the job.

Is she still on the Ashton Kutcher show or did she get booted?

GIVE HER THE DRUGS