Debra Winger, a three time Oscar nominee, is back after a lengthy hiatus from film making. The 53 year old reluctant actress plays the mother of troubled daughter Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married.
The new movie opened in limited release on October 3rd, 2008 in the U.S. and at various international film festivals within the past few weeks. The movie premise is that a troubled young woman, who has been in and out of rehab for the past 10 years, returns home for the weekend to attend her sister’s wedding.
Winger has had many career starts and stops. She debuted at age 21 as Wonder Woman‘s younger sister. Her breakthrough performance came four years later in Urban Cowboy. She disappeared for two years and resurfaced to do An Officer and a Gentleman, where she received her first Oscar nomination and went down on the record as being ‘difficult’.
Terms of Endearment earned her a second Oscar nod, where she played Shirley MacLaine‘s terminally ill daughter. She dated Governor Bob Kerrey of Nebraska while filming on location. She and MacLaine reportedly scuffled off camera in what was described as an all out fist fight. After that came Legal Eagles, The Sheltering Sky and Shadowlands, where she got her third Oscar nomination.
Then came children, a son with first husband, actor Timothy Hutton, and another son with her current husband, actor Arliss Howard. The movies slowed to one every year or two as she took on a personal role that she found much more fulfilling.
Winger penned a book of self reflection, Undiscovered, that released in 2008 and appears to have stepped back into her former life with early rave reviews for her portrayal of Abby in Rachel Getting Married.
Check out our photo gallery and the movie trailer below.