Debra Winger

I’m Evan Smith, the editor of TEXAS MONTHLY.

It’s doesn’t seem possible that so many years have passed since the release of Urban Cowboy, but the seminal Texas movie that put mechanical bulls on the map arrived in theaters in the last year of Jimmy Carter’s administration, which is to say all the way back in 1980. And that means the career of Debra Winger, one of the great American actresses of our generation, also, amazingly, stretches back that far, since her portrayal of Sissy, the love interest for John Travolta’s character in the story based on Aaron Latham’s now-famous Esqure magazine article, was her first consequential role on screen. Born in Cleveland and raised there and in California, Winger graduated from high school at age 15 and went on to major in, of all things, criminology at Cal State Northridge. While working part-time at an amusement park – more specifically, while playing a troll at Six Flags Magic Mountain – she was thrown from a truck and was partially paralyzed and temporarily blinded and lapsed into a coma. But over the course of ten months she recovered, after which time she quit school and started studying acting. Not your typical way into the business, but there’s very little that’s typical about the now 53-year-old’s career, which has truly run the gamut. Her credits include, on the low end, a brief stint on TV as Wonder Girl, the sister to Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman, and the soft-core film Slumber Party. On the higher end – where to begin? Besides Urban Cowboy, there’s An Officer and a Gentleman, which earned her her first Oscar nomination, Terms of Endearment, her second Oscar nomination, The Sheltering Sky, Leap of Faith, A Dangerous Woman, Shadowlands, her third Oscar nomination, and back on TV, most recently, Dawn Anna, for which she received her first Emmy nomination. She was also the subject of a much-talked-about documentary, directed by Roseanne Arquette, titled Searching for Debra Winger, about ageism in the movie business. Although we don’t see enough of her these days, she remains one of the most accomplished and uncompromising Hollywood stars — and, as you’re about to see, a feisty, take-nothin’-from-nobody interview.

A conversation with Debra Winger, on this edition of TEXAS MONTHLY TALKS.