Debra Lynn Winger (born May 16, 1955) is an American actress. She
starred in the films An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Terms of
Endearment (1983), and Shadowlands (1993), each of which earned her a
nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She won the
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress for Terms of
Endearment, and the Tokyo International Film Festival Award for Best
Actress for A Dangerous Woman (1993). Her other film roles include
Urban Cowboy (1980), Legal Eagles (1986), Black Widow (1987), Betrayed
(1988), The Sheltering Sky (1990), Forget Paris (1995), and Rachel
Getting Married (2008). In 2012, she made her Broadway debut in the
original production of the David Mamet play The Anarchist. In 2014,
she received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Transilvania
International Film Festival.She starred as a series regular in the
Netflix original television series The Ranch (2016â€"2020).Debra Lynn
Winger was born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, into an Orthodox Jewish
family, to Robert Winger, a meat packer, and Ruth (née Felder), an
office manager. Over the years, she told many interviewers that she
volunteered on an Israeli kibbutz, sometimes even saying she had
trained with the Israel Defense Forces, but in a 2008 interview she
said she was merely on a typical youth tour that visited the kibbutz.
At the age of 18, after returning to the United States, she was
involved in a car accident and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage; as a
result, she was left partially paralyzed and blind for 10 months,
having initially been told that she would never see again. With time
on her hands to think about her life, she decided that, if she
recovered, she would move to California and become an actress.Winger's
first acting role was as "Debbie" in the 1976 sexploitation film
Slumber Party '57. Her next role was as Diana Prince's younger sister
Drusilla (Wonder Girl) in three episodes of ABC's TV series, Wonder
Woman. The producers had wanted her to appear more often, but she
refused, fearing that the role would hurt her fledgling career. This
was followed by a guest role in Season 4 of the TV drama Police Woman
in 1978.
starred in the films An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Terms of
Endearment (1983), and Shadowlands (1993), each of which earned her a
nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She won the
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress for Terms of
Endearment, and the Tokyo International Film Festival Award for Best
Actress for A Dangerous Woman (1993). Her other film roles include
Urban Cowboy (1980), Legal Eagles (1986), Black Widow (1987), Betrayed
(1988), The Sheltering Sky (1990), Forget Paris (1995), and Rachel
Getting Married (2008). In 2012, she made her Broadway debut in the
original production of the David Mamet play The Anarchist. In 2014,
she received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Transilvania
International Film Festival.She starred as a series regular in the
Netflix original television series The Ranch (2016â€"2020).Debra Lynn
Winger was born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, into an Orthodox Jewish
family, to Robert Winger, a meat packer, and Ruth (née Felder), an
office manager. Over the years, she told many interviewers that she
volunteered on an Israeli kibbutz, sometimes even saying she had
trained with the Israel Defense Forces, but in a 2008 interview she
said she was merely on a typical youth tour that visited the kibbutz.
At the age of 18, after returning to the United States, she was
involved in a car accident and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage; as a
result, she was left partially paralyzed and blind for 10 months,
having initially been told that she would never see again. With time
on her hands to think about her life, she decided that, if she
recovered, she would move to California and become an actress.Winger's
first acting role was as "Debbie" in the 1976 sexploitation film
Slumber Party '57. Her next role was as Diana Prince's younger sister
Drusilla (Wonder Girl) in three episodes of ABC's TV series, Wonder
Woman. The producers had wanted her to appear more often, but she
refused, fearing that the role would hurt her fledgling career. This
was followed by a guest role in Season 4 of the TV drama Police Woman
in 1978.
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