BIOGRAPHY EXCERPT
[The following is excerpted from the first Johnny and Winona chapter of my book: Johnny Depp: The Biography, published in July 1999 (September - US)].
True Love
The first time Johnny and Winona Ryder clapped eyes on each other they knew it was love at first sight. He knew he was looking at the girl of his dreams. Her stunning natural beauty just hit him. Everything about her was perfect. He didn't want to be seen staring at her as she got a coke in the lobby of the Ziegfield Theater in New York but he simply couldn't help it. Not surprising really. Squeezing herself into a tight white Giorgio di Sant'Angelo lycra mini-dress with plunging neckline, Winona was in town for the premiere of her film "Great Balls of Fire" in which she played the child bride of Jerry Lee Lewis.
She had already been wowing the paparazzi with her arrival, and by the time her elfin frame moved inside, Johnny couldn't help but notice the dark brown velvet eyes that flickered adorably, or the gorgeous bopped black hair that was swept away from her forehead to offset the pale porcelain skin that he thought echoed visages of a young Elizabeth Taylor with an equally enviable body. The message was simple. She was young, she was hip, and she was cool. Not only that but the whole world was in love with her, or at least those who had seen her movies were. From that point of view, Johnny was no different. The fact that she could also act the socks off her contemporaries must have helped.
Indeed, Winona had already proved that she could rise above the profit margin of the coins in the box office; she had ever since she debuted in David Seltzer's "Lucas", the first of her many alienated teenager roles. A starring role followed in Daniel Petrie's "Square Dance" before she landed the part of the sensitive-souled misfit heroine of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice, and that of a teenage killer in Michael Lehmann's dark satire comedy, "Heathers". Both movies delighted audiences and critics with the appearance of a new fully-formed star as she all but took permanent residence on the covers of the teen magazines.
It was a classic glance,' raved Johnny, `like that zoom lens in "West Side Story" when everything else gets foggy.' It wasn't, Winona said, `a long moment, but it was suspended.'
Dressed more casually for when she was dragged to meet Johnny in his hotel room at the Chateau Marmont a couple of months later by Josh Richman, a mutual friend through the small parts he played in "Heathers" and "21 Jump Street", Winona watched entranced by the charm that had caused much of American girlhood to fall for him, and was even more enamoured of the intelligence that his smart, sensitive "21 Jump Street" role had seemed to imbue him with.
Although at first, `I thought maybe he would be a jerk. I didn't know,' Winona confessed, `but he was really, really shy.' Shy or not, it was where Johnny and Winona began their intense and often unstable relationship. It was just six months before they were due to film Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands" together, although at the time, of course, they had no idea they would be working alongside each other.
Almost before they knew what was happening, they were arranging to see each other again. Their first date, a few weeks later, was a party at the Hollywood home of counterculture guru, Timothy Leary, Winona's godfather. Johnny was simply ecstatic. `When I met Winona and we fell in love, it was absolutely like nothing before. We hung out the whole day... and night, and we've been hanging out ever since. I love her more than anything in the whole world.'
Even though she may have had some earlier romances, `I never really had a boyfriend before,' Winona admitted later. At seventeen, and after a barely worth mentioning two-week fling with her "Heathers" co-star Christian Slater, she hadn't really contemplated, or even thought about a serious relationship yet. Not only that, she says, but `I was no veteran of relationships.' `It wasn't like I was after Johnny or anything,' she reasoned.
Nevertheless, it looked like it might be fun to pursue. `I'd heard horror stories about what happens when you dive in real quick.' And she made it clear she wouldn't be diving yet.
She also underestimated the strength of her own emotions. Five months after they met, Johnny gave Winona an engagement ring, and a month later, the couple were living together, even if it was in a succession of hotels and rented apartments. Although Winona soon had him thinking about `sniffing out a place to own and live. Maybe, somewhere on the east coast.'
Not that John Waters, Johnny's soon-to-be director of Cry Baby was convinced. He calls him a homeless movie star. Even after knowing him for a year and a half, he confessed, `I have a page of addresses for him. The best way to reach him is to write Johnny Depp, A Bench, Vancouver, British Columbia.' Johnny, of course, explained it away by saying, `I have beds, tables, chairs, a TV set. And they're mine, And I have Winona. That's all I need.'
Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder - it was a relationship made in tabloid heaven. Winona was young, sweet, charming, a child. Johnny, on the other hand, was a hell-raising party monster. Well, according to the press he was. All the same, the gossip columnists couldn't go wrong. Even Timothy Leary would later describe Johnny as both `wild and charitable,' and although Winona focused on the charitable side, the ubiquitous Hollywood insiders found Johnny's apparent past and presumably future indiscretions of considerably greater interest.
There was, for instance, the row of scars that decorated his arms, each commemorating what Johnny deemed an important moment in his life. There was also his own admission that he started smoking at 12, lost his virginity at 13, and by 14, had tried `every kind of drug there was.' And if that wasn't enough, there was his past record, as one observer put it, `the kind of passionate fellow who finds scant middle ground between picking someone up and proposing.'
There was also the fact that he had been married and divorced, engaged twice more, and would even spread his engagement to Winona into a trilogy of breakups and reconciliations, affirmed by the number of times Winona's engagement ring came off and went back again.
And at other times, the Irish ring she sometimes wore. The one that, she said, signifies love, friendship and loyalty. Wearing it with the small crown pointing up meant she was taken. But when "Rolling Stone" caught up with her for a May 1989 feature, one month before she spotted Johnny, she was wearing the crown down. `The longest relationship she had, six months, had just ended because she was away on movie shoots all the time.'
Indeed, it was Johnny's romantic past and presumably future that was the number one concern. Manhattan was even stricken by a brief craze after the announcement of his betrothal to Winona, in which car bumper stickers appeared demanding, HONK IF YOU'VE NEVER BEEN ENGAGED TO JOHNNY DEPP. Not that it bothered him - or did it? `I'll just answer that I was engaged to Sherilyn, I was engaged to Winona, and I was engaged to Jennifer Grey. But a lot was written about that shit, and it was taken to another level and it was turned into some kind of horrible joke.'
Joke or not, Johnny, of course, had blazed this trail before, pursuing and getting involved with much younger women. His previous engagements as much as his infidelity might well have been his chosen path, but it didn't seem to worry Winona in the slightest, and if it did, she simply shrugged it off. `People assume it bothers me that he's been engaged before, but it really doesn't. We have a connection on a deeper level. We have the same colouring, but we're from very different backgrounds, so we're interested in each other the whole time.'
Indeed, Johnny had read the Beat poets Winona grew up with, understood the culture that provided the background to her own childhood, and loved to collect the first editions of their work. It was what nourished their appetite for each other, and fuelled their regular weekend visits to the counterculture book store that Winona's father, Michael Horowitz, ran in Petaluma. They also shared a mutual obsession for "The Mission" soundtrack, Jack Kerouac, and J D Salinger's "Catcher In the Rye" - Winona's all- time favourite novel which she said she had read at least fifty times, and affectionately called her personal bible. From that point of view, they shared much more in common than fame.
Not only that but Johnny had never been as involved with a relationship as much as he had with Winona. He even felt the need to set the record straight on his previous liaisons, so widely reported as engagements. `That's not quite true,' he insisted. `I was sort of engaged. But if you haven't made some mistakes by 28, it's abnormal. People do whatever they do for whatever reasons, and it's not for anyone else to understand. And basically, it's none of their business.'
Besides, he continues, `I've never been one of those guys who goes out and screws everything that's in front of him. When you're growing up, you go through a series of misjudgements. Not bad choices, but wrong choices. People make mistakes. We all fuck up. I was really young for the longest time. My relationships weren't as heavy as people think they were. I don't know what it is, possibly I am trying to rectify my family's situation, or I was just madly in love. There's been nothing throughout my 27 years that has been comparable to the feeling I have with Winona. There's something inside me that knows really well, that no one else has ever known, or will ever know. Life is trial and error, but when you find the one who's really it, there's no mistaking it.' That, he explained, was why he was going to get Winona's name tattooed on his arm for $75.
When Winona heard that news, her initial response was excitement and pride. `I was thrilled when he got the tattoo,' Winona sighed. `Wouldn't any woman be?' It was only later that her interest turned to apprehension. As she waited at Sunset Strip Tattoo - `Tattooers of the Stars Since 1971' - while Johnny's `Winona Forever' double-banner tattoo was engraved into his right bicep to match the tribute to his mother on his left, those feelings grew stronger.
At the same time, `I was sort of in shock,' Winona freely admits. Besides, `I'd never seen anyone get a tattoo before so I was pretty squeamish, I guess.' Even as she repeatedly removed the bandage to stare at the engraving that Mike Messina had so perfectly etched, `I kept thinking it was going to wash off or something. I couldn't believe it was real. I mean it's a big thing because it's so permanent.'
Johnny himself had no doubts. `I love Winona. I'm going to love her forever. Putting her on my arm solidified it. The truth is very powerful, believe me this is not something I took lightly.' But according to Messina, `It was no big deal for him, mainly because he's had tattoos done before.' Even if the process did hurt. But that was all part of the allure. `Yeah!' Johnny yelped. `I liked the pain. It was electric, kind of nice.'
Although Winona had already given him a platinum ring, Johnny insisted that rings could be lost. `Tattoos are extremely permanent.' But would that permanence turn out to be a burden? In expressing his love for her so strongly, Johnny had effectively caged her. Maybe it was then that she realised that on the rare occasion when she did talk about him to the press, the future, their future, never received a mention. Instead, she would talk purely of the present.
The first few months of the couple's life together, however, was spent apart. Johnny was in Vancouver on the set of 21 Jump Street, while Winona was in Ohio shooting her next role in Jim Abraham's Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael. Although work for both would prove to be an aching separation that only long distant phonecalls and red-eye flights could bridge, it would also provide a welcome rest from the daily harassment of the gutter press. That of course, didn't stop Johnny's romantic beckoning. One night, he remembers sending Winona 200 helium balloons - `she could barely walk to the phone to say thank you,' he recalls fondly. They simply, `took up too much room.'
Johnny Depp: The Biography, Copyright 1999, Nigel Goodall. Used with permission. From BLAKE PUBLISHING (UK):
Publication Date:
5 July 1999, ISBN: 1-85782-341-9, £9.99
From SEVEN HILLS BOOK DISTRIBUTORS (distributors for BLAKE PUB.in the U.S): Release Date: 1 September 1999, $15.95. Readers can get the book through their favourite bookstore, or online at amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com, or may order directly from Seven Hills by calling 1-800-545-2005 (s&h $3.50 additional).
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