Winona Ryder has been a fixture in Hollywood for decades – but many people are only just realizing the actress has been using a stage name all these years
Many fans are only now realizing that Winona Ryder, the iconic star known for her role in Beetlejuice, has been enchanting audiences under a stage name instead of her birth name.
Hailing from Winona County, Minnesota, Winona Ryder was originally christened Winona Laura Horowitz. Her trek to stardom began in earnest back in 1985 with an audition tape for the film Desert Bloom.
Although she didn’t snag that particular part, director David Seltzer recognized her potential and cast her in his high school drama Lucas, alongside the likes of Corey Haim, Charlie Sheen, and Kerri Green.
It was her standout performance in Lucas that captured the attention of Tim Burton, leading him to choose her for the role of a brooding goth teenager in Beetlejuice, which featured big names such as Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Keaton.
Winona Ryder and David Harbour of ‘Stranger Things’ accept the Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series ( Image: Getty Images)
However, the story goes that it was on the Lucas set that Winona whimsically carved out a new identity for herself that would skyrocket her fame. Deciding against her given surname of Horowitz, she adopted the moniker Winona Ryder; this choice left many perplexed, sparking inquiries like one baffled Quora user who posted: “Why doesn’t Winona Ryder use her real last name? ”
According to People magazine, Winona took up her stage surname when thinking about how she wanted to be billed in her early screen credits, with the inspiration striking as a Mitch Ryder LP played in the background.
But Charlie Sheen has voiced his own version of how she landed on ‘Ryder,’ mentioning that he may have had a hand in the selection. On Digital Spy, it states: “Charlie Sheen has claimed that he came up with Winona Ryder’s stage name.”
The 46-year-old actor told the YES Network show CenterStage that before Ryder landed her first major role, he came up with the name. “We were listening to The Doors, to ‘Riders on the Storm’,” he explained. “[Winona’s] real name is Horowitz, and I said, ‘You know, I’m thinking Winona Ryder sounds cool’, and she was like, ‘Yeah!’. [She] never, never gave me credit to this day!”
Commenting on her stage name, one Quora user said: “All of Winona’s names sound great to me. Some real names are too long. Some real names don’t sound well when used. An alternative is to use short names instead. Many actors prefer to use their real names and have become very popular.”
