Winona Ryder Reveals Her Hippie Parents Were Petrified She'd End Up Like Drug OD Child Star Casualty Judy Garland If She Chased Hollywood Acting Dream
Winona Ryder said her parents didn't want her to end up like Judy Garland working in Hollywood.
Sept. 6 2024, Published 6:45 p.m. ET
Winona Ryder has opened up about why her start in showbiz almost didn't happen.
RadarOnline.com can reveal the 52-year-old recently revealed she had a liberal upbringing on a 300-acre commune in Mendocino, California – and as a child she was babysat by social activist and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, while her godfather, psychedelic guru Timothy Leary, would take her to baseball games.
But Ryder's hippie parents drew the line at the idea of her steeping herself in Hollywood culture with acting gigs, because they feared she would end up like the tragic Judy Garland, who battled a life-long substance abuse addiction sparked by pressure from movie producers.
Ryder was cast as Lydia in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice when she was a teenager.
Her family moved from San Francisco, where they were heavily involved in the free-thinking intellectual community of Haight-Ashbury, to the rural town of Petaluma when Ryder was 10-years-old. There, she found herself an outcast who often used her love of "film noir" as a form of escapism.
Ryder's parents eventually enrolled her in classes at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, hoping she would be around more like-minded peers.
While she grew up in an eclectic household – that seemingly supported her interests in film and acting – she confessed her parents still had their reservations about her working in Hollywood.
Ryder confessed her parents were weary of Hollywood because they 'associated it with Judy Garland's tragedy'.
After she was accepted into the conservatory – which boasts alumni including Denzel Washington and Annette Bening – after adapting a monologue from J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey. She quickly thrived and at 13-years-old, she won an agent.
Still, her parents implemented strict rules about her budding acting career.
She explained: "But I had to keep up my grades. I couldn’t work if it coincided with school. My parents – who are just my best friends – were very wary of Hollywood.
"They associated it with Judy Garland’s tragedy, and we never relocated there."
The actress said her parents refused to move to L.A. and she could only work if she kept up her grades.
Ryder confessed not moving to Hollywood "turned out to be such a gift, because I knew a lot of kids who did bear that".
She added: "They relocated and were supporting their whole family, and it didn’t turn out so great. I knew a lot of kids who got burnout."
Thanks to her parent's guidance, the 52-year-old actress' career blossomed.
Garland famously blamed her life-long substance abuse issues on MGM producers pushing prescription pills on her at a young age.
Tragically, Garland's career was revenged by drug and alcohol addiction issues, which began early in her career.
Garland, who died of an accidental overdose at age 47, said she and other young actors, including Mickey Rooney, were prescribed amphetamines to stay awake and keep up with filming back-to-back movies for MGM in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
She said they were additionally prescribed barbiturates to help them fall asleep. The Wizard of Oz star attributed the constant use of uppers an downers at an early age to her life-long struggles with substance abuse.
Rooney, however, denied ever being pushed into prescription pills by studio heads.
He said: "Judy Garland was never given any drugs by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Mr. Mayer didn't sanction anything for Judy. No one on that lot was responsible for Judy Garland's death. Unfortunately, Judy chose that path."
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