Festival > Media > Press Release 08.03.05
Debra Winger & Arliss Howard Named PT Film Festival Guests
Port Townsend–Actress Debra Winger, whose ascendancy to Hollywood stardom came partly as the result of an acting job that brought her to Port Townsend in 1981, will return with her actor/writer/director husband, Arliss Howard, as the special guests of the 6th annual Port Townsend Film Festival, scheduled for September 23-25.
The announcement was made today by festival officials after waging a month-long contest to see who could correctly identify the guests based on four sets of clues released weekly. Seventeen contestants made correct guesses. Another thirty correctly guessed one of the guests, but not both.
Winger and Howard will be honored at the festival following a screening of their 2001 film, "Big Bad Love," on Saturday night.
Winger co-starred with another up-and-coming actor of the period, Richard Gere, in "An Officer and a Gentleman," which was filmed almost entirely in and around Port Townsend for two months in the spring of 1981. The film went on to become the second highest grossing film of 1982 (first was "ET: The Extraterrestrial") and, in 1983, earned Academy Awards® for Lou Gossett Jr as best supporting actor and Jack Nitzsche, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Will Jennings for their song, "Up Where We Belong."
Winger was nominated as best actress, but the statuette went to Meryl Streep for "Sophie's Choice."
From her lead role in "An Officer and a Gentleman," Winger co-starred with Jack Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment." Again, she was nominated for a best actress award but MacLaine, who played her mother in the film, won instead. (The National Society of Film Critics, however, chose Winger over MacLaine.)
She earned a third nomination as best actress in 1994 for her role as American poet Joy Gresham, opposite Anthony Hopkins' British writer C.S. Lewis in "Shadowlands."
But by 1995, Winger had had enough of Hollywood.
"I have trouble with star billing," she was quoted as saying. Commenting on her name placement for "Cannery Row," based on the novel by John Steinbeck, she said: "How can I put my name ahead of Steinbeck's?"
On her early roles in commercials during the 1970s, she said: "I was the all-American face. You name it, honey - American Dairy Milk, Metropolitan Life Insurance, McDonald's, Burger King," she remembered. "The Face That Didn't Matter - that's what I called my face."
She was also said to be "difficult" to work with, reportedly wanting to rewrite dialogue and objecting to sex scenes.
In 1995, she stopped acting with no intent to return.
Her absence became so pronounced that her name was used in the title of a 2002 documentary film. Roseanna Arquette's "Searching for Debra Winger," about being a woman in the entertainment industry, brought the actress to the public's consciousness just as she had appeared in her first film in six years, "Big Bad Love," with her husband Arliss Howard.
He convinced her to star (and produce) the film about a struggling Southern writer that he had adapted with his brother, James Howard, from stories by Mississippi writer Larry Brown, and that he would direct. After screenings at the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals in 2001, the film was critically well-received, but when it opened in the fall the critics were not so kind. And the public stayed far away. The opening weekend gross was $5,293. Between its release in October 2001 and April 2002, the film had earned $100,420.
But the film is considered by many to be a flawed masterpiece, and its soundtrack, with songs by Tom Waits, has enjoyed good sales.
Speaking about her decision to give movie-making another try, the straight-talking actress says, "(Arliss) talked me into this and I thought, 'So long as I have control, it will be okay.' I didn't know how tough it was going to be. Acting is one thing. Being the boss is hell."
Despite the commercial failure of "Big Bad Love," the two have continued collaborative efforts, most recently the television cable drama, "Dawn Anna," in which Howard directed his wife to an Emmy nomination as outstanding lead actress in a miniseries or a movie. Emmy awards will be announced in Los Angeles September 18, a week prior to their appearance at the Port Townsend Film Festival.
A recent director, Howard is noted for his character roles in such films as "Full Metal Jacket," "Tequila Sunrise," "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything July Newmar," "The Lost world: Jurassic Park," and "Amistad."
Winger has been considered by many as one of "Port Townsend's own," though this will be her first visit since filming here 25 years ago.