From nursing her mother through her final months to fighting against environmental issues and raising her children, take a look at what happened to this actress who captivated audiences with her raw talent and disappeared from Hollywood at the height of her fame.
Born on May 16, 1955, to Ruth and Robert in Cleveland, Ohio, this famous actress showed early promise. She was an intelligent child, graduating from high school at just 15 years old before enrolling in college to study criminology.
But acting had quietly captured her heart. She kept her passion for performing a secret from her family, only pursuing it later after a brush with death made her reconsider her path.
At 17, while working at an amusement park in California to earn extra money, she experienced an accident that would alter her life forever.
Dressed as a troll in a Christmas-themed show, she was warned to take care of the costume she wore — it was expensive, and she was responsible for it.
While riding in the back of a small truck, she noticed the costume slipping. “[…] I reached for it,” she recalled. Just as she stood up, the driver swerved. The teenager was thrown from the vehicle and slammed onto the asphalt.
She woke up in a hospital, disoriented and frightened, with devastating injuries. The accident had caused a brain hemorrhage, leaving her blind and paralyzed on one side of her body.
She spent months in recovery, drifting in and out of a light coma. At times, she felt that her sense of time was distorted, describing the experience as surreal.
“The organization of time seemed less linear and more spatial,” she reflected. Even after healing, the emotional scars remained. “I have no separation, timewise, from that experience. It doesn’t get softer. It doesn’t fade,” she admitted.
Doctors told her she might never walk again, let alone return to any semblance of normal life. But once she regained her strength, the actress made a bold decision — she would pursue acting full-time.
The near-death experience had left her with a renewed sense of purpose. She felt life was fleeting and fragile, and if she had a passion, she wasn’t going to waste any more time hiding it.
After moving to Los Angeles to chase her dream, she landed her first major role on the TV show “Wonder Woman,” playing the superhero’s younger sister, Drusilla. Although her stint on the show was brief, it opened the door to film roles.
However, Hollywood didn’t quite know what to make of her at first. She was a fresh face who didn’t fit neatly into any box. Despite this, her talent was undeniable. She quickly became known for her fierce, commanding presence on screen, and her ascent to stardom was swift.
Her breakout role came in the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy,” where she starred opposite John Travolta. In one memorable scene, her character rides a mechanical bull in a Texas honky-tonk bar, exuding a raw sensuality that captivated audiences and critics alike.
Her performance made her a household name overnight. Reflecting on her rapid rise to fame, the actress said, “Now, we’re sort of used to people in their 20s hitting just like that. […] But it wasn’t that typical when it happened to me. It was wild.”
In the years that followed, she landed back-to-back roles in critically acclaimed films. “An Officer and a Gentleman” in 1982, where she starred alongside Richard Gere, earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Her portrayal of a working-class woman in love with a Navy pilot made her one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading ladies. However, her experience on set wasn’t without controversy.
She famously described Gere as “a brick wall,” humorously adding, “I probably could have come up with something nicer.” Despite the tension, the film was a massive success.
A year later, she earned another Oscar nomination for “Terms of Endearment,” a heart-wrenching family drama co-starring Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson.
By the mid-1980s, the actress was at the top of her game, widely regarded as one of the most talented performers of her generation. Yet, despite her success, she remained deeply disillusioned with Hollywood.
The industry’s focus on image over substance frustrated her, and she bristled at the pressures placed on actresses to conform to unrealistic beauty standards.
While filming “An Officer and a Gentleman,” the actress recalled how someone on set once handed her a bottle of water retention pills, saying she looked “puffy in the dailies.”
She was stunned. “I was so young I didn’t even know what it was, and I just handed it back and said, ‘I’m not taking that.’ It just sounded ridiculous to me. But somebody else could have really succumbed,” she explained.
Her strong-willed personality made her both respected and feared in Hollywood. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, even if it meant clashing with directors or turning down lucrative roles.
But by the early 1990s, she felt the industry was changing in ways that no longer excited her. The rise of male-driven blockbusters left fewer meaningful roles for women, and the quality of scripts she was being offered declined.
After receiving her third Oscar nomination for “Shadowlands” in 1994 — a film she described as “the most literate script I’ve ever read” — she made the shocking decision that she was stepping away from acting.
She now lives in a quiet town along the Hudson River just outside New York City and rarely gives interviews. While that may lead some to label her as “guarded,” those who meet her describe someone warm, candid, and quick-witted.
Still, her decision baffled many as she was still at the top of her game. Some speculated that her relationship with then-Nebraska governor Bob Kerrey, whom she met while filming “Terms of Endearment,” influenced her choice.
The pair had a whirlwind romance, and Kerrey, who lost part of his lower leg in Vietnam, reportedly once joked, “What can I say — she swept me off my foot.” Though deeply in love, their relationship eventually ended, with the star noting, “I tried the pillbox hat for a while, but I couldn’t.”
Others suggested health issues were to blame, citing her ongoing struggles with back problems. But she insisted her decision to leave Hollywood was a personal one.
“No. I stopped because I ceased being challenged,” she explained. “I don’t want to sound like some old moaning loudspeaker about ‘women’s roles,’ but it wasn’t good,” she added.
During her hiatus, she focused on her personal life. In 1996, the Hollywood star married actor, director, and writer Arliss Howard, whom she met on the set of “Wilder Napalm” in 1993. “A good marriage is different to a happy marriage. Happy is a tough word. But I did marry…well!” she said.
Together, they raised their blended family of three sons — Noah, born in 1987 during her marriage to her first husband, actor Timothy Hutton, her stepson Sam, and her youngest boy from her second marriage, Babe.
“She’s a very good, very thoughtful mother, and I think it was hard for her to bring the commitment to her work that it requires when we were young,” her eldest son said.
Like their mother, all three boys pursued careers in the film industry. Noah is a cinematographer, director, and editor, Sam is in screen advertising, and Babe is an actor, writer, and director.
Despite their eventual career paths, the star once tried to steer her sons away from that world. “They were all forbidden to go into show business, and yes, they are all in it!” she joked. Still, education was non-negotiable. “But they did get a proper education — I wouldn’t pay for film school,” she added.
The famous actress also took care of her mother during the last three months of her life, devoted time to environmental activism and charity work, taught at Harvard, wrote a book, and performed on stage. “I did a lot of interesting stuff,” she said. “And I didn’t feel like any of it was ‘instead of.'”
She also took her activism to new heights to campaign for tighter gun control and later starred in the TV film “Dawn Anna,” which tackled the tragedy of the Columbine High School massacre. Speaking on her political stance, she once remarked, “Until there’s money out of politics, there’s no democracy.”
This actress is none other than Debra Winger, who, though occasionally appeared in indie films, largely stayed out of the public eye until 2016, when she joined the Netflix series “The Ranch” alongside Ashton Kutcher.
However, she still had her critiques of the entertainment industry. “I don’t feel like it’s settled yet. [The industry] is still in upheaval,” she said.
Nonetheless, her return to acting wasn’t without its challenges. “I never thought I would start working again, and I did, but it was really hard,” she admitted. “I don’t know that I would advise anyone to step back the way I did.”
Despite her disappearance from the acting scene over the years, fans have not forgotten Winger’s timeless beauty. “You look GREAT miss lady,” a social media user commented in part on one of the actress’s recent Instagram posts. Another person shared, “Still beautiful” and a third typed, “Debra you look lovely.”
As of 2017, Winger has split her time between her working farm in Sullivan County, New York, and various film projects. She enjoys Sundays spent gardening and working toward solarizing her property.
Looking back at her journey to becoming well-known, Winger clarified that she never actively sought fame. Instead, she explained that her drive stemmed from a desire to excel in her work and share her inner thoughts and feelings.
After accumulating years of experience and gaining a deeper understanding of herself, she now feels empowered to express herself authentically, according to her own standards.
Reflecting on her life and career, she remains unapologetically true to herself. “There’s a lot of living that needs to be done,” she said, and for Winger, that living has always been on her own terms.
