Debra Winger lost the lead role in Romancing the Stone -- because she bit Michael Douglas

I read about this the other week. So fucking gross. I love how people like to say “she was just a woman who didn’t play by the rules and stood up for herself,” - no, she was fucking disturbed.

Rob Lowe’s podcast is pretty good, by the way.

His FACE!

He looks like an absolute ghoul in OP’s photo.

This makes me a Debra Winger fan.

Strange that only Nick Note and Anthony Hopkins have nice things to say about her.

[quote] At the time, Winger was one of Hollywood's most sought-after actresses, having starred in the "Wonder Woman" TV series

WTF, CNN?

Debra Winger, Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon were all up for the part that eventually went to Turner.

Didn't Shirley say in her book that Debra couldn't seem to act unless she was fighting with someone?

It turned out the way it should've. I loved Turner in the role.

yes r8

it sort of makes sense she fought with Shirley and Jeff Daniels since the characters clashed but she also fought with the woman playing Patsy (and Richard Gere, John Malkovitch, David Mamet, Penny Marshall...

She also fought with James L Brooks and Taylor Hackford

Consider that Debbie Wingnutz had a problem with every person she ever worked with on every production she was involved with… the problem is her.

She was a star not an actress.

Personality-driven performers (stars) dominate movies.

She was a good actress. She was never a Julia Roberts type with the name above the title and getting Summer and Christmas releases against the big dogs. She was an actress.

Winger is old history. Nobody cares about her or most of her films.

Terms of Endearment is still much beloved (and she only got the role because Sissy Spacek turned it down due to recently having a baby).

Black Widow has a cult following due to it's lesbic undertones.

Other than that Winger and her films are largely forgotten.

Weird that there was a CNN article on this recently. We'd just been talking about this a few months ago, and now it's in a podcast and making the news?

[quote]she bit Michael Douglas

And?

And she was mesmerzing in Costa-Gavras's Betrayed.

Wasn't she also in Shadowland with Anthony Hopkins? (I'm too lazy to check.)

I haven't seen that in years, but I remember liking it a lot, so she must've been really good in it.

Debra Winger bit Michael Douglas on the arm because Michael's sleazy father Kirk Douglas violently raped Natalie Wood. I always liked Debra Winger, believable in every role, honest performance and relatable, not forced or fake, she seems authentic and sincere. She doesn't take any shit, she's outspoken and speaks her mind, thus called "difficult". Great memorable films: Terms of Endearment, An Officer and a Gentleman, Urban Cowboy, Black Widow, I liked Mike's Murder too. Anyway, I'm sure Debra Winger had her reasons for biting Michael Douglas, I'm sure he deserved it, especially if he's a pig like his father...

^^just curious about what further details Michael Douglas is leaving out or omitting, which led to Debra Winger biting his arm, since he's had a long time reputation for being sexually over-aggressive, and does not like to be told NO... i.e., a pig like his father.

[quote]^^just curious about what further details Michael Douglas is leaving out or omitting, which led to Debra Winger biting his arm, since he's had a long time reputation for being sexually over-aggressive, and does not like to be told NO... i.e., a pig like his father.

And Deb’s long had a reputation for being a cunt on wheels.

Maybe she gave him throat cancer as well.

Douglas is the only one who has mentioned the bite, the best I can tell. I never could find the original source of the story, though, but he must have said it in an interview somewhere. Kathleen Turner mentioned it in her book back in 2008 so maybe he just told her, and she repeated it.

I agree, I think he got handsy with Debra and that's why she bit him. She's got a reputation as a pain in the ass, but this is the only physical assault she's ever been accused of. I'd love to hear her side of the story.

I'd rather work with Sally Kirkland than this bitch again. She's batshit crazy.

I wonder how CZJ likes that man crawling over her body.

R27 She thinks of the money perhaps.

Debra fought with Lynda Carter on "Wonder Woman".

There are women who don’t take any shit, who are assertive, who don’t have a reputation for being batshit and terrible to work with. Michelle Obama springs to mind immediately.

I know women in real life like this. And a few like Winger, who fight with everyone and make life a living hell because they aren’t happy unless there’s chaos and discord. Harmony irritates them. They’re not bad people (my mother was one of these types and I loved her deeply); they’re just unbalanced.

Sometimes they are hard done by, and wronged, but that gets lost because they’re usually the one terrorizing.

Having said that, I liked her as an actress, a lot.

[quote]From then on, it was a case of once bitten, twice shy for the film icon. When he got back to Hollywood, he said, he broke down in tears in front of film bosses. "I break down in tears and say, 'I can't go to the jungle with her -- she bit me in the arm!' I said, 'I can't do it!'" He said the studio executives agreed not to cast Winger.

He broke down in tears? Seems quite the overreaction. Was Michael Douglas unstable in general?

Breaking down in tears? Pfft.

Debra is going to spill just WHY she bit him in the arm, if he's not careful.

She has suffered from mental illness since she was a teen.

Agree, R31. That reaction definitely deserves a "Mary!"

[quote]At the time, Winger was one of Hollywood's most sought-after actresses, having starred in the "Wonder Woman" TV series

[quote]WTF, CNN?

This is what happens when you let the interns who think the world began five years ago write the website copy.

Sassy saucy Debra Winger unleashed her stinger on Michael Douglas, the helpless "victim"... yeah, sure, Jan. :-/

[quote]R2: His FACE!

[quote]R3: He looks like an absolute ghoul in OP’s photo.

It's 'When Michael Calls' (1972), fifty years later:

"Auntie-my-Helen, I'm 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑑!"

[quote]people like to say “she was just a woman who didn’t play by the rules and stood up for herself,”

Funny, that's what Serena Williams said about her meltdown at the 2018 US Open.

[QUOTE] He looks like an absolute ghoul in OP’s photo.

Well he's old and he's had multiple types of cancer. Give him a break!

He CRIED when she bit him.

He fucking CRIED.

Romancing the Stone would have been a steaming pile of shit with Winger in it. One of the best parts of RTS was watching Joan blossom as the movie progressed.

No, R20. Wrong. Climb down off of your pile of Kotex boxes.

I 100% agree that Kirk Douglas is a steaming pile of shit and I hope he's burning in hell but that wasn't the reason.

R20 Your first sentence is nonsensical. Maybe he did deserve it for something he did (which he's omitting), but you don't bite someone for something his father did unless you're a loon.

Debra would have hunted down Kirk and bit him directly, if that's what this is supposedly all about.

I would pay good money to see a cage match between Debra Winger and Sean Young. The rules would be: 1) they have to wear catwoman suits; 2) the winner bites the loser; 3) Douglas referees, if he can stop crying long enough.

I've had work dealings with Douglas on numerous occaisions. He is an arrogant jerk with no sense of humor. Never met Winger but ususally when there is this much smoke.

Both of them give off bad vibes and bad energy.

Michael Douglas and Jack Nicholson made bets about which one of them could fuck Kathleen Turner first. Debra was just getting him before he got her.

Didn’t know Sissy had to turn down Endearment.

I could totally see her as Shirley’s daughter.

Debra Winger is bipolar and exhibits all of the typical book bipolar behavior. It's a wonder she ever had a movie career to begin with.

Sharon Stone and Glenn Close seemed to be able to work with Michael Douglas without needing to bite him. Debra is just an unstable psycho bitch.

[quote] Sharon Stone and Glenn Close seemed to be able to work with Michael Douglas

But nobody wants to fuck Glenn Close.

If Natalie Wood bit Kirk Douglas, and had Debra Winger's sense of self-preservation at the time, Kirk never would have violently raped Natalie. But she was young and naive, and she didn't have the mental or physical strength to fight him off, and Kirk overpowered her, and he raped her, violently. Debra's bite probably discouraged Michael from doing the same thing on some level, because he knew she wasn't playing that male dominated pornograghic poer game. Good for you Debra!! :-)

^^power game^^

I am so sick of this societal reclamation of has-been rancid cunts as "strong women who didn't play the game." Does anyone apply this maxim to say, Val Kilmer? Mickey Rourke? I'd call these men in their primes more talented than Winger (whose roles could all easily been done by Sissy Spacek) any day of the week.

Love Sissy Spacek, a wonderful actress, but I highly doubt the pornograghic male dominated power structure of Hollywood, including Kirk and Michael Douglas, would have wanted to get between her legs and bang her furiously. Spacek is a lovely girl, but she was no Natalie Wood or Debra Winger in the looks department, she had no sex appeal for the predatory wolves, that's just a fact. So Sissy Spacek never would have been in that position. A wonderful actress though...

Bit him? Like, on the dick?

^^ bit him on the arm...

[quote]Debra Winger bit Michael Douglas on the arm because Michael's sleazy father Kirk Douglas violently raped Natalie Wood.

You are a kook, R20. Outside of the old testament, since when is a son responsible for his father's sins?

With Debs it woulda been more like Romancing the Cunt!

R55, do you know nothing about heterosexual men? They'd bang anything given the opportunity.

She and Anthony Hopkins probably bonded over their shared distain for Shirley

Apparently after filming the hospital scenes Shirley would gleefully dance around the set singing "I'm going to get my Oscar!"

Didn’t Debra fart in Shirley MacLaine’s face?

Yes R63 Debra had been on a cabbage diet to prepare for her hospital scenes and let one fly at Shirley after she found out Shirl was stirring the pot with producers to bump Debra into "Supporting Actress".

Cassandra Peterson (Elvira) wrote in her book that she took acting classes with Debra and Lynda Carter and that 'Debbie' had a big, frizzy afro, glass and braces and her stage mother would always accompany her to classes and would awkwardly cheer her on. She said Debra was a natural though and blew everyone away with her performances in class. Cassandra seemed to think Lynda had enough pull to get Debra the Wonder Girl part. Apparently, she and Lynda had a falling out and Debra talked trash about her. But like other have pointed out, Debra didn't seem to get along with very many people. I'm sure her stage mother didn't help lessen her ego either.

She would absolutely ruined Romancing the Stone.

I remember going to the theater to see it and we were a bit late and when we walked in during the first scene we were convinced we were in the wrong theater because it was playing a western.

Hollywood is so boring and focus group-ed to death these days that we need more Debra Wingers.

At least she didn't break wind in Michael Douglas's face.

I saw Shadowlands again recently and didn't think she did much to merit an Oscar nomination, let alone in Lead. Hopkins was superb though. Must have been a slow year.

Romancing the Stone required a certain deftness with comedy, which Turner had. Has Debra Winger ever done a comedy?

R70 Forget Paris, Legal Eagles, Thank God It’s Friday. So, not really.

[quote]Debra Winger bit Michael Douglas on the arm because Michael's sleazy father Kirk Douglas violently raped Natalie Wood.

Has anyone ever produced any evidence that Kirk Douglas did this? I'm so tired of hearing this story every time Kirk Douglas's name come up here.

Did Natalie ever go to the police? No.

Did it happen? I have no fucking idea.

[quote]Did Natalie ever go to the police? No.

A teenage girl going to the LAPD in the 1950s to complain about being raped by one of the biggest movie stars in the world?

Come the fuck on.

It looked as if she had devoured him.

[quote]A teenage girl going to the LAPD in the 1950s to complain about being raped by one of the biggest movie stars in the world?

She was a rising star. She wasn't a nobody. There would have been people who could have put them in the same place, saw her after it happened, contemporaneous accounts, etc. Wasn't absolute proof supposed to come out after he died?

R76 ...

R52's a retard. Winger's as self involved as M. Douglas. She didn't give a fuck about what happened to Natalie Wood. Plus, she's a cunt.

Maybe R55 wouldn't be so militant if some man would thrust his rock hard veiny throbbing dick into her Sahara Desert of a snatch. That's all she wants. Too bad it's never happened and never will.

R72, Natalie never went to the police because her mother, who drove her to the Chateau Marmont to meet with Douglas, advised her to "suck it up."

I know he’s 77, but my goodness, he looks terrible. Bruce Springsteen is 72 and looks way better, so you can still look good in your 70’s if you take care of yourself.

Kathleen was wonderful in that role. She should have won the oscar that year.

Had they not been obsessed with farm movies that year, she might have had a chance.

Shut up about Natalie Wood! This is MY fucking thread.

According to one of Shirley's autobiographies, even though it was years ago, there are still some nights when Shirl makes up with the traumatic smell of Debra's foul flatulence in her nostrils.

Know someone who did a production with Debra. This person is tough and a seasoned pro. And Debra terrorized them. It was a harrowing experience, I’m told. Just acting together. But Debra was constantly trying to keep this co-star off balance, as I understand it.

She’s in a special category of demented. I want to say evil but that might not be right or fair as she’s nuts.

A production?

She didn't deserve her nomination for An Officer And A Gentleman either

She may be crazy but she deserved the Oscar over Shirl that year. The goodbye to her kids scene is perfection.

It's too bad Alec Baldwin couldn't have shot her.

Well at least she didn’t rape Natalie Wood.

Douglas sounds ridiculous.

R1 Nuts? Dear boy you have no idea. The whole Winger family is cray cray. The Markle family, only Jewish. They did not handle having a famous relative well. A family obsessed. One member quit his job in order to loop her likeness into a rug. I think it was a kit.

I just read Rutanya Alda's memoir of shooting Mommie Dearest, which makes it clear what a neurotic, controlling bitch Faye Dunaway was when they were shooting. Too bad she and Winger never starred together. Throw in Cybill Shepherd, and you'd have the ultimate trifecta of cuntiness.

Here's her farting on Richard Gere

Michael Douglas is a walking lizard. If she bit him, he deserved it. He oozes creepiiness.

Never understood her appeal. I wonder what her marriage to Timothy Hutton was like.

She is or was one of those people who look like a different person in every photo. Eric Clapton was like that too, back in the day.

Sissy Spacek turned down the role in Terms of Endearment because she refused to say the line "you just made me wet." She told James L. Brooks she couldn't say it, and he refused to cut or alter the line. It was documented in a book about the making of the movie. It also said Winger was beyond difficult and more accurately disturbed - she would fly off the handle over nothing and refuse to show up on set for days. Brooks spent most of his time trying to keep her pacified and the others from bolting due to her antics.

That said, I think she's a great actress. Hollywood is rife with actors who are mentally ill.

She also wouldn't have stopped him if she'd been there R89.

Why wouldn't Sissy say she was wet? She flashed her tits and ginger minge before.

Kathleen Turner I think is the best actress of the ‘80s. Yes, better than Meryl.

She deserved Oscars for Body Heat, Crimes of Passion and Romancing the Stone combined, Peggy Sue Got Married and War of the Roses. Those performances stand the test of time, and they all show her range.

I like Debra but her antics are a major turnoff.

[quote]That said, I think she's a great actress. Hollywood is rife with actors who are mentally ill.

Eventually actors who are chronic pains in the ass stop getting hired. Debra Winger might be just as talented as Meryl Streep, but Meryl keeps getting offered roles today because she's a professional on set and people enjoy working with her.

Could you imagine Madonna and her working on a League of their own? And Rosie, another one who isn't a shrinking violet?

I suspect part of the reason why she dropped out of League was because she knew she had her match in Madonna, who pulled the same shit with people. Madonna had also trashed Winger a couple of months back in an interview over The Sheltering Sky.

It would have made the set of Terms of Endearment look like a kids show by comparison.

Madonna is a shitty actress but I have never heard her not being professional on film sets. But I agree Winger met her match in Madonna, only because I think Winger knew she couldn't pull her shit on an ensemble set with Tom Hanks. Not to mention I don't think Penny Marshall wanted to deal with her bullshit. They needed a "team player" to go back to what Douglas said in regards to Romancing the Stone. Winger is not a team player and A League of Their Own needed a team player.

[quote]She may be crazy but she deserved the Oscar over Shirl that year. The goodbye to her kids scene is perfection.

NO, R87. No, it is not.

It's hackneyed and trite. Winger didn't have the acting chops that this movie demanded that scene shows how shitty of an actor she is.

i loved Romancing The Stone the first time I saw it. And Turner in it. At a different time it could've been her Pretty Woman. She was endlessly charming in it.

Turner should’ve won for Peggy Sue. Just rewatched it and she’s fantastic. Matlin was a pity vote, sorry to say.

Does Winger still loathe An Officer…? It’s her best role along with Terms. I remember the story was she really wanted to work with (fuck) Gere, but he turned her down.

Years later Gere said that he ran into Winger at a party and he asked her if she was still running around saying terrible things about him and she said yes and walked away.

Debra also holds grudges. I think Shirley tried to be peaceful but Debra doesn't like for normal.

Currently watching Black Widow now

Michael Douglas is straight? Debra winger sure isn't.

She reportedly had a HUGE coke problem on the Terms set and after for awhile. I think she sustained a head injury when she was younger too which I think led to her craziness at the time. James L Brooks and Winger were hell on wheels on the TOE set. They thrived and chaos and drama. Shirley almost quit at least once. Debra was pretty nuts on the Urban Cowboy and Officer/Gentleman sets too. I think she cleaned up her act when she married Hutton for the most part. She continued to be outspoken but not as crazed as before. If MD actually cried that’s pathetic. I would’ve smacked her if she bit me. Plus had her arrested.

Sorry for whoever hurt you and turned your soul black, R103. I hope being a bitchy cunt heals you.

I’m no big fan of Andy Cohen but Debra comes off as a bit of a cunt here

I dont care how crazed a cunt she is,Terms is a fucking masterpiece of a movie.I watch it once a year,sometimes twice. It never gets old.

R113 I have never seen it, it sounds too sad. Noooope.

R113 agreed. Never gets old. All the friction and chaos making it paid off. Shirley and Debra’s chemistry is incredible. Plus add Nicholson to the mix and it’s no surprise it was a huge box office and Oscar hit.

Terms of Endearment is a classic. I think even Shirley would agree that the behind-the-scenes drama was worth it because what's on-screen is magnificent.

Nobody loves R111. Not even her children. Her husband drinks because he's married to her. She thinks people like her and pretends not to notice how her phone never rings and she never gets invited out with the girls. Just how fat and blotchy ARE you, R111?

R20 what hilarious bullshit. There are many ways to make it known you’re not to be messed with/hit on and that’s not one of them. Plus, that wasn’t who she was anyway - if she wants fighting with he co-stars then she was sleeping with them - case in point Jack Nicholson.

She was Sean Young level batshit - only differences being that she 1) actually could act (though never as great as everyone said) and 2) somehow (miraculously) has for the past couple of decades lived an incredibly stable and boring life - married to the same guy and living in the Catskills , like any good UWS Jewish retired women’s studies professor (which is what she looks like these days, incidentally).

She may well have been smart enough to ultimately reclaim her own fate. But her behavior in her heyday was pretty inexcusable.

Deborah Winger takes herself very seriously.

r98 I believe those are two separate actresses who turned the part down. Sissy due to pregnancy and another unnamed actress (on the DVD commentary) who refused to say that line.

Isn't Kathy Turner one of those that hides from her soap past?

Michael Douglas looks like the Skeksis in the Dark Crystal, hideous and vile, God doesn't sleep.

R61 Actually no. Hopkins and MacLaine when they crossed paths said she was a pain in the ass to work with to each other.

Why wasn't the role offered to Meryl? She and MacClaine are believable as mother and daughter.

Meryl may have been too expensive, right after winning the Oscar for Sophie's Choice.

R110 You are correct about the injury.

R124 No. It is widely known that is was going to be MacLaine/Spacek. Spacek dropped out because she had recently had a baby and wanted to spend time with her child. The next pick was Mary Steenburgen.

Films of Terms took place from 14 March 1983 to 23 May 1983. Spacek had given birth in July 1982.

Streep may have been considered but there is no documented evidence of even rumours that she was.

Interesting. I thought Debra was excellent in the film, but I can picture Sissy Spacek in it, too. She may have depicted the passive daughter controlled by the dominating mother with a little more depth for that aspect of the story. Still, no complaints about Debra's portrayal at all.

Meryl won the Oscar on April 11th 1983 and was already huge. She gave birth to Mamie on August 3rd. Maybe that's why she was never considered?

R112 I don't think she came off that bad. She handled wonky eyes with skill. I don't know why anyone would tolerate his inanne questions.

R127 Re-read R124. They are merely wondering why Meryl wasn't in the running. They didn't claim that she was up for the role.

oops. Type oh. Inane.

Kathleen Turner was more man than woman. Gay directors need to let straight men decide which actress to hire.

Kathleen was definitely a straight man's sex symbol in the 80's.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Sigourney Weaver were two others.

99.9% of people have no idea who Debra Winger is.

I was comparing her to the posturing non-performances of Gywneth Paltrow and others. Winger had passion, clarity, and fearlessness in many of her roles.

I really liked her as an actress. She seemed real unlike phony Julia Roberts. However, she liked to be outrageous which would probably now be more acceptable but back then she looked like an uppity, out of control woman.

Shadowlands was a very moving film. Anthony Hopkins was great in that. He unfortunately had both Shadowlands and Remains of the Day in the same year and got nominated for Remains instead.

She’s a good actress, but a low-key one.

I saw The Sheltering Sky age 9 which blew my tiny mind.

R83. Shirley wrote that she told Winger “Don’t talk with your mouth full” after that incident.

I got a big stinky fart with your name on it, OP.

Let me tell you, the amount of fucking shit which young Hollywood actresses have to deal with, I'm glad that Debra was the aggressor from early one; she knew they wouldn't fuck with her. And once she proved that she had box office, they couldn't kill her career.

Kathleen Turner was perfect in Romancing The Stone. I don’t think Debra could have combined the demure young cat lady romance novelist with the brave, resourceful, sexy adventuress half so well.

Debra Winger is an outstanding actress. It’s sad that she didn’t appear in more movies. She turned down some very choice roles, though I can’t remember which ones.

[quote]And once she proved that she had box office, they couldn't kill her career.

She killed it herself.

R144 She never carried a movie on her own. All her hits were due to her bankable male leads who the story focused on (John Travolta, Richard Gere, Robert Redford). The closest she came was Terms, and that was co-lead with Shirley MacLaine, who IMO, totally owns the movie. Debra is good in it, perhaps her only truly great performance, but Shirley is who people walked away remembering.

r145, that's BULLSHIT. Everybody agrees that Debra Winger is the heart and soul of that movie.

No we don't, R146.

Actually, you don't speak for me, everybody r147. I think both MacLaine and Winger are equally great and deserving of the Oscar.

And YOU don't speak for ME/everybody, R148/R146.

Winger was a shit actress in the movie.

The recent remake/ripoff The Lost City shows how far filmmaking has fallen. There wasn’t a minute in it that felt like we were witnessing real-life people like Turner’s novelist caught up in bigger-than-life adventure. Even the look of the film was cheap and video gamey. Probably to hide the fact that Sandra is 65 trying to play a gamine woman in her 40s.

The woman's a fucking lunatic. She bit Michael Douglas. She farted on Shirley MacLaine. And after the divorce, she moved right down the road from my house so she could "try her hand at farming."

After her, I stuck to the easier broads, like Angelina Jolie and Sean Young.

The Lost City is one of those made-by-committee movies r150. Same with Jungle Cruise which had some Romancing the Stone elements but felt like it was made by a corporation rather than filmmakers trying to make a classic.

Diane Thomas' script for Romancing the Stone is terrific. Joan is such a smart heroine. She came across as a real person.

Never in my life have I ever wanted to put mouth anywhere near Michael Douglas.

[quote]She and Anthony Hopkins probably bonded over their shared distain for Shirley

Say what, now?

I hated the movie she did with Redford. What a snoozefest, Lawd! Redford was so pompous in so many of his roles. He had all the depth of a puddle. Just worked his smile and flapped his gums. Beyond his obvious physical attributes, never saw his appeal.

Legal Eagles is a guilty pleasure of mine. It's terrible but i kind of love it. But it was a bad move for Winger. She followed up Terms with Mike's Murder which is an interesting film but not for a two-time Oscar nominee. Then she followed that up with Legal Eagles which was a flop. Black Widow did well, but the rest of the movies she did in the '80s were flops. She never regained momentum until A Dangerous Woman and Shadowlands gave her good notices and another Oscar nomination. And then she disappeared again.

She did Mike's Murder because of James Bridges, whom she had worked with on Urban Cowboy. I think she called him her mentor in her book.

She was contractually obligated to do Legal Eagles, which she hated and trashed in interviews as the film was being released.

debra's the crazy one. sharon stone is the real deal ballsy one.

[R113] I have never seen it, it sounds too sad. Noooope.

Same here, my mom died of cancer the year it came out and I’ve never been tempted to see it.