JOHNNY AND WINONA PAGE

MOVIELINE - May 1990
Johnny Handsome
By Stephen Rebello

Newly named "Male Star of Tomorrow" by the National Association of Theater Owners, 27-year-old Depp was sharing thedais with fellow honorees…. And Batman director Tim Burton, "Director of the Year," for whom Depp will next appear in the Fox movie Edward Scissorhands opposite "Female Star of Tomorrow" Winona Ryder, number one foxy lady in the young actor's private life. Cozy…

….Not the least of these twists has to do with "Winona Forever." That's how the scroll-like tattoo reads when Depp strips off his jacket to proudly display his bared biceps. This is but the latest of Depp's skin engravings.

"It was no big deal for him, because he's had tattoos done before," says Mike Messina of Sunset Strip Tattoo - "Tattooers of the Stars Since 1971" - whom Depp engaged for about $75 to needle into his flesh his feelings for Winona Ryder, the actress whom he currently acts with by day in Edward Scissorhands and cohabits with by night. "The fact that we're together and we're in love certainly won't hurt the movie," Depp says, with a warily happy smile. "Winona and I are engaged. It's official. She has a lot of talent and, aside from that, I also happen to love her. I'm sure we're going to do more things together. People have had great success at that, like John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. In a perfect world, I'd just do movies with Winona, John Waters, and Tim Burton, and live happily ever after."

Depp-watchers profess amazement that his and Ryder's relationship has the wandering waif putting down roots for the first time. Temporary ones, mind you. "I have a house now that I'm renting," says the actor whom John Waters calls "a homeless movie star." Although Depp hints that his and Ryder's probable marriage has him thinking about "sniffing out a place to own and live in, maybe somewhere on the east coast," Waters says: "I've only known Johnny for a year-and-a-half, but I have a page of addresses for him. The best way to reach him is to write: Johnny Depp. A Bench. Vancouver, British Columbia. By the way, he moved again this week," Depp adds, cautiously, that for the first time, "I have beds, tables, chairs, a TV set. And they're mine." And as for friends? I've got a couple who are very important to me and I have Winona who is very, very important to me. That's all I need."

I propose that Depp try and talk John Waters into directing him and Ryder in a whacked-out remake of Viva Las Vegas with Depp taking over for Elvis's hip-swivelling grease monkey and Ryder for frenzied, lip-smacking Ann Margret. "That would be beautiful," Depp says. "I would love to do something like that. Especially with the Dead Kennedys' version of the theme song." LIST

ELLE - November 1990
Winona Ryder Rides Again
by Christa Worthington

Light-boned to the point of lift off, she is anchored by a wholesome, high-schooler's voice, and a rock - a diamond solitaire - from her betrothed-to-be-betrothed, Depp. `We're in no rush,' she smiles, languorously engaged to the star of teen cop series 21 Jump Street and, more recently, John Water's Cry Baby . But her face goes radioactive when he enters the room.

A black-eyed Kentuckian turned teen idol, Depp has etched "Winona Forever" in a tattoo on his arm as an irascible token of commitment. (Eight years her senior, he has been engaged to girlfriends before). He has the kind of telegenic testosterone that makes screaming teens ask for his sewage, as did one fanatic on the set of Cry Baby. `I now know what it's like to wake up with a television camera in your window,' says Ryder of their tabloid appeal.

Returning from shooting Edward Scissorhands in Tampa, Florida - the town makes Ryder roll her eyes in mock tedium: `We were staying in a golf resort,' she explains - a posse of paparazzi lay in wait for Hollywood's cool couple at the airport. A chase ensued. `It was one of the most horrible things I've ever seen in my life,' recalls Tim Burton. `I'm a sort of believer that if you're in the public eye you've got to accept a certain amount of that. But I've never seen something so hostile. They tripped Winona.'

Burton says that Depp `truly is this character because he's not what the world perceives him to be - this male model heartthrob, a new James Dean. He is not that at all. He simply does not know what he looks like.'

The bathetic character of Edward Scissorhands, the man who can't touch anything without destroying it is, Ryder says, Burton's metaphor for adolescent inadequacy. He describes it as being about the curse of appearance, a thing to which, he thinks, both Ryder and Depp can relate - through the burden of beauty.

They have, friends agree, more in common than their big black eyes. `They choose to make Heathers and Cry Baby, not Pretty Woman and Top Gun,' says Denise Di Novi. `They see behind the facades a lot more than most people in the business.'

Depp's love of books and Jack Kerouac, `not in any social, sixties-is-cool-way, but in a genuine way,' has endeared him to Ryder's father, the Beat expert, she reports. `He thinks, Marry him!' At her family home in Petaluma ("chicken capital of the world"), which she and Depp frequent when not in their New York loft - her parents coddle them. `They bring me and Johnny breakfast in bed. They're so cool,' she coos. `They've been together forever and they still make out and stuff.'

`A lot of actors were afraid of the part of Edward because it was so vulnerable, and he doesn't have a gun and doesn't have a girl,' she says. `Johnny, like, went for it. That takes a lot for an actor, especially a male actor, to do,' she says, seemingly unaware that it has never been hard for her. LIST

U.S. Premiere - November 1990
Uncommon Women
by Christopher Connolly

"But those days are over."

Over because she (Winona) has fallen for Johnny Depp, into whose embrace she fairly flows after each take whenever he's on the set (Mermaids set). They stand there hugging wordlessly until he relinquishes her for the next take. "I never really had a boyfriend before," she says. Now she has a fiancee.

"Neither one of them knows what they're doing; they might as well go through it together," says Cher, a much-decorated veteran of the love wars. "At least she's going through it with a person who cares a lot about her." At the age of eighteen, Cher herself was already wedded, and so her advice shouldn't be sneezed at. "I just said, ‘Don't get married right away, that's all I ask.' Not that she's going to pay any attention to me."

"I got the whole lecture," says Ryder, smiling. "I mean, I want to get married--I've got the feeling that this is right, this is it." At that moment, putting her hand to her head, she does indeed seem very much her age, you can't help but hope she doesn't get hurt. "But I don't want to do it just so I can say I did it. I want to have, like, a honeymoon and the whole shebang."

Time was, of course, when Depp passed out engagement rings the way other guys make passes. "Oh, yeah, I hear that a little bit," she says. "But that was then, this is now." Even at eighteen and over-the-moon in love, Ryder can't let that last line stand alone: "I want to use every cliche I can think of!"

Two days after Mermaids wrapped, Ryder got on a plane for Italy, with Depp at her side (to film The Godfather Part III). She hadn't slept in four nights, and the flight only exacerbated a lingering sinus infection. Upon landing in Rome, she was whisked to the set for costume fittings and makeup tests. She was then brought to the hotel and immediately began vomiting. The stage was set for what Ryder now calls "the worst thing that I could ever imagine happening to my career."

To Depp, it was apparently clear that Ryder was in no condition to work and would have to drop out of the movie. It seems he was ready to bring her back to the United States right away, but mindful of Ryder's potential legal exposure should she drop out, her agent, Andrea Eastman of ICM, asked that Ryder be examined by a doctor. Godfather producer Fred Roos dispatched one to her hotel room--and Ryder recalls that his diagnosis was clear: "‘You have to go home...

She was given a sedative and finally began to sleep, while Depp field calls from the set. "Maybe people thought that Johnny was influencing me, but he wasn't," says Ryder, chuckling at the thought. "He was just taking care of me: ordering me room service, sticking his finger down my throat, helping me throw up." Less than 48 hours after their arrival, Depp and Ryder were flying to California, "because when you're eighteen and you're really, really sick, you have to be with you mom and dad." LIST

Seventeen - December 1990
WINONA
by Claire Connors

While we're on the subject of movies, I ask Winona about her newest film, Edward Scissorhands. "For Edward, I listened to a lot of The Sundays and Coucteau Twins. It's a really sad love story," she says thoughtfully. "Really sad. Johnny plays Edwards, and he has blades instead of real fingers." Johnny is, of course, Johnny Depp, Winona's fiancee. It's hard not to notice the giant diamond displayed on her left hand. And while she drops his name as casually as you or I would our boyfriend's, I decide to wait until our next meeting to get the Johnny scoop.

To Johnny Depp. Understandably protective of their relationship, Winona eyes me suspiciously when I ask how they met. "We met a year and a half ago through a friend," she says cautiously. Was it love at first sight? She smiles shyly. "Well, it was good. It was...you know..." she looks up pleadingly. Okay, off the hook. Where are they living right now? "We have a house in San Francisco, and we just bought a loft in Manhattan. But it's not like a chichi loft," she points out quickly. "It's just a space, and we've filled it with all the stuff we collect. Like Johnny has his Elvis stuff, and we have lots of records, CDs, and boxes of books." Finally, I have to ask the dreaded question: When will she and Johnny tie the knot? She's prepared for this one, having been asked it only about a million times. "You know, getting engaged just means that we're committed to each other. It's nobody's business when we're getting married," she says emphatically. "For now, we're just enjoying our lives and having fun." Winona looks at me with her big, soulful eyes and practically reads my mind. "I know to a lot of people I seem to be going really fast," she concedes. "But what am I supposed to do? Slow down to be normal? I'd just end up going crazy and being bored." She flashes a satisfied grin at me and says, "Right now I am just really happy."

Insert quote - "Johnny always makes me breakfast. Eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast, and coffee. Lots of coffee." LIST

ROLLING STONE - 10 January 1991
Sweet Sensation
by Bill Zehme

On my second day with Depp, Winona Ryder showed up. She is nineteen and all pluck, the thinking man's actress for her generation. Depp is the thinking man who thinks of her most. He wells in her presence. When they hug, they hug fiercely, in focused silence; their squeeze keeps re-grouping. They seem to be lost in each other. She smokes his cigarettes, and she is not a smoker. ("You're on the filter, babe", he will coach her).

Hands locked, they descended upon Barney's Beanery, a frequent haunt, for caffeine, which they now took in desperate helpings. She wore a Tom Waits T-shirt and Depp's engagement ring. She was saying, `I'd never seen anyone get a tattoo before, so I was pretty squeamish I guess.' Depp chuckled and said, `She kept taking the bandage off and staring at it afterwards.' They were speaking of WINONA FOREVER, the third and final (for now) Depp tattoo, eternally etched onto his epidermis: locus, right shoulder. (Depp told me he plans to have his tattoos pickled after his death as keepsakes for his children, should there be any). This one was carved on at a nearby tattoo parlor as Winona watched with awe. `I sort of was in shock,' she said. `I kept thinking it was going to wash off or something. I couldn't believe it was real.' Her eyes widened. `I mean, it's such a big thing, because it's so permanent.'

`It ain't goin' nowhere,' Depp said, and by this I knew he meant business. Over hash and eggs, they then traced the history of their romance for me. He knew her work ( Beetlejuice, Heathers), and she knew his, but they did not know each other. At the premiere of Great Balls of Fire!, a film in which she played Jerry Lee Lewis's child bride, they spotted each other from across the lobby. `I was getting a coke,' Ryder said. `It was a classic glance,' he said `like the lenses in West Side Story, and everything else gets foggy.' She said, `It wasn't a long moment, but it was suspended.' he said, `I knew then.' They did not meet that night. Months later, a mutual friend dragged her to Depp's hotel room at the Chateau Marmont, where John Belushi last drew breath, and this is where they began. `I thought maybe he would be a real jerk,' she said. `I didn't know. But he was really, really shy.' They knew it was love when they both professed deep feelings for Salinger and the soundtrack of the film The Mission. Their first date, a few weeks later, was a party at the Hollywood Hills home of counterculture guru Dr.Timothy Leary, who is her godfather. `We were kinda blessed.' said Depp, a beat disciple. As it happens, Winona's father is an esteemed Beat bookseller in Petaluma, California, where she and Depp weekend often. `My parents really love him a lot.' she told me. Depp said: `It could have been easy not to like me. Other people might have just seen tattoos.'

Tim Burton calls the couple "kind of an evil version of Tracy and Hepburn". Which is to say, as celebrity couples go, these two are dark, spunky, glamourous and resilient, all requisite traits in this cynical age. For they are beset. Tabloid photographers terrorise them at airports, and tabloid reporters regularly report imaginary squalls and breakups. So he gets angry, and she gets incredulous. Winona: `They try to trip me at airports!' Depp: `What's shitty about it is that they feel like you owe them! That you should stop dead in your tracks and let them piss on you!' Winona: `I will say that there are some really nice ones.' Depp: `A couple of them are real nice.' Winona: `But aren't we allowed to be in a bad mood sometimes? Everybody else is.' LIST

SKY - April 1991
Winona Forever
by Michael Kaplan

And suddenly People magazine named Johnny and Winona the King and Queen of Young Hollywood - and the two of them were participating in a National Association of Theater Owners-sponsored salute to the Young Stars of Tomorrow. `In Vegas,' Ryder says, aware of the irony of her situation. `It was the whole Hollywood thing,' she adds, curling her upper lip distastefully. `We flew to Vegas in a private plane and Johnny got to shake Wayne Newton's hand, he was so excited, he couldn't stop talking about it.'

Ryder's celebrity status has now reached the level she was originally parodying: `Johnny and I flew into LA from Tampa where we'd been working all day, and we were really tired,' she says, recounting her arrival a few days before. `We got off the plane, and about fifty paparazzi people jumped out and started taking our pictures. We couldn't, like, see where we were going because the bulbs were popping. One guy stuck out his foot and tried to trip me! They were yelling at us, trying to get an "interesting picture". Finally Johnny got so mad that he turned around and flipped them off. Now you'll see his picture in a magazine and he's going to look like some asshole.'

A lot of what Ryder is putting up with is the scene surrounding Depp, who sent up his own teen idol status in John Waters' film Cry Baby. The press can't seem to resist writing about his habit of getting engaged to such starlets-of-the-hour as Jennifer Grey and Sherilyn Fenn. (This has led to a craze of bumper stickers all over Manhattten, reading "Honk if you've never been engaged to Johnny Depp"). Depp has been moved to demonstrate the permanence of his affection for Ryder by having "Winona Forever" tattooed on his deltoid. Ryder tells me, `I was thrilled when he got the tattoo. Wouldn't any woman be?'

While Ryder refuses to discuss Depp's - or her own - earlier romances, she's very convincing when she says she's tired of having paparazzi cameras trained on their every move. Still, according to her pal Daniel Waters, she's enjoying the celebrity trip more than she likes to let on. `There's a part of her that likes it even though she denies it,' he explains. `Right now she's got a Natalie Wood obsession.'

It's no surprise that Ryder would be interested in the late actress who also entered show biz as a child, rocketed through teen stardom, and then managed to make the precarious leap to lasting adult fame. (Wood's Depp was Warren Beatty, and she never married him). But she doesn't appear to be basing her career on Wood's. Wood co-starred opposite Beatty in the mainstream love story Splendour In The Grass , from which she emerged a grown-up star. Ryder has chosen to don a blond wig and cheerleader get-up opposite a Depp buried under tons of bizarre make-up, replete with shears for fingers in Tim ( Beetlejuice, Batman ) Burton's surreal Peter Pan-esque fantasy, Edward Scissorhands.

`Working with Johnny turned out to be really great,' she says. `Of course I was scared and nervous about it. I mean, if there's one person that I want to impress with my acting, it's him. So there was a lot of insecurity during the first couple of days, but it turned out to be a really motivating situation, you know?'

With or without Johnny, Edward Scissorhands, a weird, hip 90s movie, fits easily into the Ryder oeuvre. And apart from that, Tim Burton is her dream director. `Tim talks my language, you know?' she says. `Did you ever meet somebody who you can just talk to? That's how I feel about Tim Burton. We have the same sensibilities; we think the same things are funny.'

Long before Tim Burton decided to cast Depp in the title role, he knew that he wanted to work with Ryder again, having directed her in Beetlejuice. The two of them met in London and discussed Scissorhands prior to the script's completion. LIST

VOGUE May 1991
Winona and Johnny Forever
by Sara Jane Hoare

Romance is a big word that buzzes on everyone's lips in Hollywood these days. Films such as Pretty Woman, Cyrano de Bergerac, Green Card and Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands are full of stuff that fairy-tales and dreams are made of.

Edward Scissorhands is a bizarre beauty and beast fairy tale set in a pastel-coloured caricature of mid America surburbia.

Edward (Johnny Depp) is the freakish creation of an inventor who dies leaving him half finished, with scissors instead of hands. He lives all alone in a castle on a hill surrounded by topiary hedges which he cuts with his scissorhands, until an Avon lady comes calling. Transferring his talent to hairdressing, he charms a local woman and falls in love with the sweet Kim Boggs (Winona Ryder) and then the trouble starts....

The same aching, star-crossed looks exchanged by these two actors on set are happening in real life as we photograph Winona and Johnny's romance in their tiny cottage, on a tiny road, by a tiny wood in Los Angeles.

The first thing you notice about Winona when she answers the door that she is very small, she is almost like a fairy. With dark, velvety brown eyes and hair that offsets her porcelain skin (she says she never goes in the sun).

Her real hair colour is blonde, but she dyes it because she feels it suits her skin tone better - she's right. Her skin reminds you of a very young Elizabeth Taylor.

As Winona shows us around her cottage, she frantically apologises for everything. She and Johnny have only just moved, and it's obvious she's a terribly homey and domesticated creature. Tripping upstairs in her fluffy slippers, she shows me her tiny bedroom with a wrought-iron bed smothered in floral decorations and a linen and lace bedspread. She opens her jewellry box and shows me one of her prize possessions, a debutante's pearl and a diamond dress watch which she was given for her eighteenth birthday.

On the telephone Winona has told me that she loves Chanel and Giorgio di Sant'Angelo, and owns lots of Manolo Blahnik and Chanel shoes, so I'm intrigued to see what she has in her closet. But when she opens it, I see rails of black-black bodies, lace and dresses on wire hangers and hundreds of Chanel and Manolo Blahnik shoes that all look the same sensible black courts and pumps. I'm amazed that someone so young- she's twenty, and so successful - can be so conservative.

Suddenly Johnny comes bounding in like a wild puppy, in a cut-off T-shirt, behaviour boots and ripped jeans, looking like a British pop singer. They hug and kiss. His taste and looks seem in a complete contradiction to Winona's. He likes clothes that have a Dickensian, dandified feel-ruffled shirts, frockcoats, morning suits. Everything about this couple seems very English; debutante girl meets eccentric Bohemian boy. Their home, their clothes and the way they are together are very romantic; there is a feeling that they are living in a wrong era in the wrong country.

As we start photographing them in Los Angeles, Winona reveals her extreme fussiness about what she will and will not wear. Leggings she thinks are a bit too daring, and a string of pearls is going more than far enough. She prefers romantic ballgowns and simple black jackets to a rocker jacket and sequins.

As the camera starts clicking, it is obvious that Hollywood's current darlings are very much in love and not at all ashamed to show it - so much so that Johnny has declared his ardur with a "Winona Forever" tattoo scrawled across his arm. Winona in a ballgown, Johnny in a damson velvet frockcoat, they look like characters from a Oscar Wilde fairy tale.

Whoever would have thought that, in 1991, it would be hip to be romantic, but these two most definitely are both. LIST

ROLLING STONE - 16 May 1991
Winona Ryder Beats The Heat
by David Wild

The original Edward Scissorhands scissorhands rest peacefully on a wooden chest at the top of the stairs. Among the mementos and messages stuck to the refrigerator are a sweet photo of Johnny Depp with cult director John Waters and a piece of yellow note paper bearing Jason Robards's phone number.

Being part of a celebrity couple must make it impossible to walk around and not get recognised.

The thing is, living in LA, we don't walk down the street. We just drive cars here. But yeah, it's more so when we're out together, but it's just the price you pay. You get to be rich and famous, and you have all this money, so you - like "What are you complaining about?" But the paparazzi can be a nightmare.

Your collective star power has made you two tabloid fodder.

I don't know, because I don't really read those papers. You hear about it. It's like a mosquito; it's annoying, but you can't pay too much attention, because it's two tiresome. I worry about it, then I think anyone with any mind of their own wouldn't be reading that stuff anyway.

I don't even like discussing my relationship with Johnny with the press. It's nobody's business. How do you explain a relationship anyway? Nobody knows anything about it, nobody, not even friends know what my relationship is like. I don't even know it. You try to figure out your own feelings and interpret them for yourself, and you have these really strong, incredible, powerful feelings. And then some writer who doesn't know you at all is writing about it. It's like "Wait, what do you know?" LIST

JUST SEVENTEEN May 1991
Johnny's Girl
by Anita Naik

Winona Ryder - she's only 19, and she's the biggest young female star in the USA. So just what's so special about the girl whose name is tattooed on Johnny Depp's arm? Anita Naik attended a rare press conference to find out.

Twenty journalists crowded into the front rows of a screening theatre in London isn't the most exciting scene in the world. But okay it's slightly different - there's a distinct feeling of rising anticipation. Why? Because Johnny Depp's girlfriend, actress extraordinaire Winona Ryder, is about to grace us with an appearance.

So just who is this young woman who's causing such a stir in Hollywood? She's made nine brilliant films and is rumoured to be very beautiful, but she's still known mainly as the girl who's captured the heart of pin-up Johnny Depp. The poor girl has an awful lot to live up to.

Suddenly she appears in the flesh looking (though we hate to admit it) even more beautiful than her photographs. Slightly smaller than you'd imagine, with dark hair, shiny hair, and swamped in a black baggy suit. It's her shy and enigmatic smile that wins over most journalists before she even climbs onto the stage and sits down.

Her vulnerable look almost makes us hacks feel guilty for putting her in such a nerve-wracking situation. This girl is the epitome of nice.

Of course, the first, most obvious question on all our lips is one about her boyfriend and the present love of her life, actor Johnny Depp. However, Winona is reluctant to talk about him, and will only go so far to admit that 1) `No, I'm not with him in London,' and 2) `I'm here with my mother,' and 3) `No, I've not been shopping for his birthday present yet.' Throughout these questions her voice is guarded and cracks with nervousness. But it's hardly surprising to discover Winona does not want to discuss her private life with Johnny Depp, especially when you consider that they have been hotly pursued by the press for a over a year. The famous couple met at a party in Los Angeles and were later caught canoodling in public at the "Cry Baby" premiere in Baltimore, USA. Since then they haven't been out of he news, and stories about their bust-ups and Johnny's famous "Winona Forever" tattoo abound everywhere.

With the press conference in full flow, Winona seems more relaxed and is not so reticent to talk about Johnny Depp and the forthcoming film, Edward Scissorhands .

Working for long hours with Johnny may sound great to us, but Winona says she sees it in a slightly different light. `To me working so closely with Johnny was just like working with another actor - it really wasn't a big deal and everything was very professional. But it was also extra nice because we didn't have to be on the phone at night to each other, because we were together anyway.'

For a 19-year old, Winona handles all the questions thrown at her extremely well and ably, and it's refreshing to see that she hasn't been jaded by all the fame that has passed her way. But Winona is quick to point out there is a down side to her fame, and to prove that life isn't easy being famous.

`Recently, Johnny and I arrived at an airport, only to be totally surrounded by paparazzi. One guy stuck out his foot and tried to trip me! Finally Johnny got so mad he flipped them off. Some people became really intrusive, and assume because I'm an actress they have the right to know and do things I wouldn't even tell my closest friends. Who could possibly want to get off a plane after flying for seven hours and have 50 photographers try to trip you up? It's really intrusive and horrible.' LIST

BIG! - June 1991
Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder
How They Got Together
by Dawn Bebe

Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder are the most talked about couple in Hollywood at the moment. He's the star of Cry Baby and the massive new hit film Edward Scissorhands. She's hot property as the star of Heathers, Beetlejuice, and Mermaids. And what's more, they've been madly in love with each other since meeting two years ago. BIG! finds out how Hollywood's hottest couple came together...

Just two years ago Johnny was heartbroken and single. He had divorced his first wife, Lori Anne Allison, who he'd married when he was 20 and just starting out in showbusiness. And although beautiful girls were flocking to the side of the star of 21 Jump Street, engagements to Twin Peaks' Sherilyn Fenn and Dirty Dancing's Jennifer Grey had been called off.

There was even a car bumper sticker around Los Angeles which said "Honk if you haven't been engaged to Johnny Depp!"

Meanwhile 17 year old budding movie star Winona Ryder was just starting out on the road to love. She'd starred in Beetlejuice and had a semi romance with her Heathers co-star Christian Slater (he later told reporters that the pair started rumours of a romance just for a laugh!)

Johnny and Winona both knew each other's work. She'd seen Johnny's TV show, and he'd seen some of her films. Then came a fleeting encounter which would change their lives.

In 1989, Johnny went to the premiere of Winona's film Great Balls of Fire, and their eyes met across the crowded cinema lobby.

`It was a classic glance,' says Johnny, `like that zoom lens shot in West Side Story when everything around it gets foggy.'

'It wasn't a long moment, but time seemed to be suspended,' says Winona.

`I knew right then,' adds Johnny. But they didn't meet that night. Months later, a mutual friend dragged Winona to meet Johnny at his room in a posh Los Angeles hotel, Chateau Marmont, where Johnny was staying while filming 21 Jump Street. This is where the romance really began.

`I thought maybe he would be a jerk,' says Winona smiling. `I didn't know. But he was really, really shy.'

As they talked they discovered they had loads in common. They both liked novels by J D Salinger and the soundtrack of The Mission film.

For their first real date they went to a party in the Hollywood hills at the home of Winona's godfather. The courtship continued while Johnny filmed Cry Baby, and he often took Winona onto the set to meet his co-stars.

The next step was to meet Winona's parents. Her dad is a poetry bookseller and Johnny's a big poetry fan, so they hit it off immediately. Now the couple often go to stay with Winona's parents in Petaluma, California for weekends.

`My parents really love him a lot,' says Winona.

`It could have been easy for them not to like me,' smiles Johnny. `Other people might have just seen the tattoos!'

Each of Johnny's huge tattoos is deeply significant to him. One says Betty Sue, his mum's name, while another is a picture of an Indian to signify Johnny's Cherokee roots. So, as a mark of his love for Winona, Johnny had "Winona Forever" tattooed on his right shoulder. Winona went with him to watch. `I'd never seen anyone get a tattoo before so I was pretty squeamish I guess' she says.

`She kept taking the bandage off and staring at it afterwards,' says Johnny. Winona adds, `I was sort of in shock. 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!' she smiles.

In return, Winona now wears a huge diamond engagement ring.

Johnny says that although he's been engaged before, nothing compares to what he feels for Winona.

`I've never been one of those guys who goes out and wants to screw everything in front of him. When you're growing up you go through a series of misjudgments. Not bad choices, but wrong choices... people make mistakes. My previous relationships weren't as heavy as people think they were. But there's never been anything throughout my 27 years that comparable to the feeling I have with Winona. You can think something is the real thing, but it's different when you really feel it. The truth is very powerful - believe me, this "Winona Forever" tattoo is not something I took lightly. Her eyes kill me...'

And he says that their relationship is more serious than some people think. `People don't realise, but we've been together almost two years. Whatever relationships I've been through before, they haven't lasted this long. With Winona it wasn't `Hi, nice to meet you, here's a ring. It was about five months before we decided to get engaged.'

As for the wedding, the couple say they will marry when they have time. They both have heavy work commitments and don't want to rush things.'

`We want to be able to do it at a time when we can get hitched and then go away for a few months - leave the country, just go wandering around, and be on a beach somewhere with tropical drinks,' says Johnny dreamily.

So for now, Johnny and Winona are happy to live in a little house they bought in the Californian hills, make movies together -they've already finished Edward Scissorhands, which will be coming out soon in Britain - and just be the perfect Hollywood couple. LIST

CHAT 20 July 1991
People Really Resent Me
by Shirley Ayre

And Winona can't wait to start a family of her own. Her fiance is 28-year-old actor Johnny Depp, who starred in last year's Cry Baby.

At the moment there are no definite wedding plans. But busy schedules seem to be the only thing standing in the way of the young lovers tying the knot.

`We'll get married when we both have time to have a long honeymoon and don't have to go straight back to work,' Winona says with certainty.

Johnny's womanising past doesn't worry Winona, who claims that - in her life - boyfriends have always been quite thin on the ground.

But she can afford to be confident. Sporting a diamond as big as a rock on her engagement finger, and with the knowledge that her boyfriend has "Winona Forever" tattooed on his arm, Winona has no reason to doubt that Johnny's heart belongs to her.

In fact, so in love are the couple that they can hardly bear to be apart. Starring together in the fairy-tale film Edward Scissorhands (released 26 July) was like a dream come true.

In the film, Winona plays Kim Boggs, a blonde suburban cheerleader who falls for the weird-looking Edward Scissorhands (Johnny Depp) - the creation of an inventor whose badly timed death leaves Edward with shears for hands.

`I can't imagine anything better than to work with someone you love because then you're never separated from them,' Winona reminisces with a sigh. `You get to go to work together and go home together - it's a real blessing.'

Johnny was even at Winona's side when she collapsed from exhaustion in Italy and had to abandon her part as Michael Corleone's granddaughter in The Godfather III.

In fact, he caught the brunt of the vicious rumours flying around about the `real' reason for Winona withdrawing from the movie.

`People were just waiting for me to screw up because I hadn't made a really big mistake yet and they really hated that,' explains Winona. `So they jumped on The Godfather thing as an excuse to say whatever it was they said.' LIST

SELECT - July 1991
Meet The Happy Couple
By Lucy O'Brien

She is a teenage post-punk bohemian with nine major movies in the can. He is a manmade mutant with an unusually firm handshake. Together Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp are Hollywood's latest cult celebrity item.

At the time Winona was in the spotlight having just got engaged to Johnny Depp, the 26-year old gunslinger who came to LA eight years ago, intent on becoming a rock musician but who became an actor instead. Depp soon made his name as a heart-throb via the TV series 21 Jump Street and in kitsch movies like John Waters' Cry Baby , leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him. As he'd been engaged twice before to aspiring starlets, when his union with Winona was announced, car bumper stickers appeared in Manhattan saying "Honk If You've Never Been Engaged to Johnny Depp".

`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.'

For Edward Scissorhands (which opens in the UK in July) Winona was playing opposite Johnny. It also reunited her with Beetlejuice director Tim Burton.

Edward Scissorhands explores yet another side of peer pressure of the American teenage nightmare. The film is a Gothic 90's fairytale in which Winona plays Kim, a sunny,blonde suburban cheerleader who falls in love with Edward (Depp) - a freakish human creation devised by an eccentric inventor who dies before completing the project. Edward is a normal(ish) human being with one highly original feature - instead of hands, he has an arsenal of sharp pointy objects.

`Physically, my role in Scissorhands was everything I'd been anti throughout my whole life. But the reason she fell in love with Edward was because she felt different. She was trying to live this perfect, normal American teenager life, but she's still not like that inside. That's what attracted me. That inside she's really weird.' LIST

THE FACE - July 1991

One person who'd agree is Depp's fiancee Winona Ryder who became available to shoot Edward Scissorhands after falling ill on the set of Godfather III. It is the first film they've starred in together. What was it like playing opposite his wife-to-be? `I was nervous. It's like another level of exposing yourself to someone. You know you can be together, but then to act together, be different people, especially someone like Edward... it was scary at first. She was nervous too. But it was great. Besides the fact that I love her and everything, she's a great actress, very giving and considerate. It was really easy working with her, because stuff automatically happens. You don't have to try. Stuff comes out.'

It goes without saying that Depp is a man in love. Visibly. His romance with Winona has been consummated and consumed in public. The details are well known. Their eyes met at the premiere of Great Balls of Fire, but they didn't. A few months later, they were introduced by a mutual friend. Going on for two years later, they're engaged and Depp has "Winona Forever" tattooed on his arm.

The Hollywood publicity machine has always thrived on star romance, but it seems in the post-Aids age, with Warren Beatty- style bedhopping publicly frowned on, big-name couples are a real item. Yet amid all the usual sleaze about Bruce and Demi and Julia and Kiefer, the youthful Depp and Ryder have been treated with kid gloves so far, cast as hip, romantic innocents. A recent fashion shoot in Vogue, which showed the couple embracing, packaged them as a "fairytale couple" - along with Pretty Woman and Green Card.

Not surprisingly, it irritates Depp to see his love-life diagnosed like a cultural symptom. Still isn't he scared that once the press honeymoon is over, the scandal rags will go out to break them up? `We've already had rumours we're splitting up. Such bullshit. Things like People magazine don't really bother me - it's like the flies buzzing around this trailer. I can deal with their presence if I have to, but I'd much rather squash them like a pea.' Another problem they face are all the dodgy team-up scripts they get sent. `They're so obvious. Like, they offered us a gangster movie together. I'm a mobster and Winona's my moll.'

Depp and Ryder seem so well suited that you forget that she's 20 and he's nearly 28. Depp seems younger, in looks and attitude. In fact, he's difficult to place in time. Tim Burton says that Depp reminds him of the classic movie stars of the Thirties and Forties (in fact, he's called Johnny and Winona a dark Tracy and Hepburn), yet with his Anlophile dress sense and tastes in music, he comes on like a post-punk hipster.

Thanks to Depp, the Pope of Trash is now Reverend John Waters. Depp got him ordained in the Universal Life Church and wants him to do the honours at the marriage. The big day will have to wait though. After Depp finishes here, Ryder is due to start doing Dracula with Francis Coppola. `We'll do it when we have a chunk of time and we can do it quietly with a three-month honeymoon. I've heard about places in Australia, islands where you can be dropped off and there's nothing there at all. I guess you just run around eating coconuts and foliage and bugs.'

So does he believe in marriage as an institution? `I believe in marriage if that's what feels right. If you feel something, do it. Why regret later? But it's true you really never know until you hit that one. Believe me, when I met Winona and we fell in love, it was absolutely like nothing ever before.'

Back at the motel in Patagonia, I'm out of questions, but Depp is keen to carry on. `Ask anything,' he says. `The dumber the better.'

Who does the dishes, you or Winona? `We live in hotels, so it's not our responsibility. But I've done some dishes. We've actually done dishes together. I washed, she dried.' LIST

VOGUE - June 1992
Vogue Men
by William Norwich

When they were first dating but making films at separate locations, Johnny Depp sent Winona Ryder two hundred helium balloons one night. "She could barely walk to the phone to say thank you, they took up so much room," he says, still pleased with himself.

Winona as in "Winona Forever," as the tattoo on his proclaims, is currently filming The Age of Innocence, Martin Scorsese's adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel, in upstate New York. Johnny meanwhile, is writing a movie with his brother. "It's not about the child within," he jokes. "It's basically about good and evil and believing in something." LIST

Shout (UK) - 1993
Interview: Shout caught with Johnny Depp recently and got him to
spill the beans on movies, clowns and if he's still snogging Winona!

Are you fed up with all the stories about you and Winona?

Yeah, I mean the last film I had out in America was Edward Scissorhands and that was two years ago! I don't know what the obsession with me is! It's so crazy that newspapers make up all these stories about me that never really happened. Part of it is my fault because I spoke fairly openly about my relationship with Nonie (that's Winona Ryder to you and me!). I stopped because I was really uncomfortable about how it seemed to give people the right to stop me in the street and ask me all these personal questions!"

Finally Johnny, are you and Winona still going out together?

"Yeah, we're still seeing each other. I'd love to work with her again, you know. She's a great actress, I'd love to find the right project for us to do together!" LIST

SKY - January 1993
Winona Takes All
by Edwin J Bernard

She says Johnny Depp was her first serious boyfriend they met when she was 17 - and her lack of experience had made her cautious. `The biggest misconception about me is that I've been with a lot of guys - in the biblical sense - and that I've had a lot of boyfriends, or experience in that way.' she says, playing with Johnny's round diamond solitaire. `I've been linked to a lot of guys I've never even met, and a few who were just friends. When I start reading that kind of stuff, I get frustrated and hurt.' (The most recent stories alleged post Age of Innocence dalliance with Daniel Day-Lewis).

`Actually, it's kind of boring now because everything's been written,' she laughs. `I don't know what else they can come up with. I think they might even be running out of stories, so they'll try and create something new with someone that I probably don't even know.' Happily, whatever rift - real or imagined - occurred between her and Johnny has been resolved and a wedding is still in the offing. `It has to be when we have a really good stretch of time to do it in, because I want to take a lot of time off. And right now he's working, so... But I don't mind waiting; I'm very happy,' she gushes. `Very happy.' LIST

GQ - October 1993
Johnny Angel
by Johanna Schneller

Throughout their nearly four-year relationship, now ended, Depp and Winona were a tabloid staple. They were simply too young and gorgeous to be left alone. And they kept doing their ridiculously romantic things. She bought him a star, the way one can buy acres of rain forest, Depp tattooed her name on his body, a banner reading "Winona Forever" all over his upper right arm. It was more than romantic, it was reckless.

"I think of my tattooes like a journal," Depp says. He now has four. "To have it removed, or erase it, is to try and say it never happened. If I alter it in some way, make it funny - put her next boyfriend's name on top of it, say - it would still be honest."

But what happened between Depp and Ryder? Where did all the rebel love go? "It's one of the mysteries of everybody's life," he says. "It's not like you suddenly one day go `Un, you know what? I just don't love.' She's a sweet kid, man. It's always a little weird, you're like `We used to do this and that, we used to have fun and hang out together.' But at least we were able to feel that for each other. I feel real lucky that we got that." LIST

SKY - January 1994
Soul Girl
by Edwin J Bernard

Ryder is both remarkably candid and remarkably throwaway when she talks about the end of her romance with Johnny Depp, which she blames more on their youth and inexperience than on public scrutiny. `It was a really good thing that it ended, I think, for both of us,' she says. `I don't know how much the media had to do with it, because we really had drifted apart a long time before the press found out that it had ended. So it was old. Of course, it's painfl and I was gong through it, but... I feel bad.' she giggles aplogetically. `It wasn't that bad, you know? It was such a good thing that it ended andI think he's great and I have nothing but kind things to say about him, but it was just over.' LIST

ROLLING STONE - 10 March 1994
by Jeff Giles

Just after New Year's, Ryder and I are scheduled to have dinner, and she asks if I would mind eating at her place: She doesn't feel up to going out - if you can't go to a bar without a drunk screaming your name, then whatever privacy you do have triples in value. Which reminds me of what Ryder says about Johnny Depp: not a hell of a lot. She never makes an unkind remark about him, on or off the record. Perhaps to aid her never-ending quest to be gracious, she doesn't read Depp's press and hasn't seen Benny and Joon or What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I ask her to free-associate on WINONA FOREVER.

Q: Do you ever think about Johnny's tattoo?
A: No.
Q: When you were breaking up, did you think about the tattoo?
A: No.
Q: Well, now that you're thinking about the tattoo...
A: What do you want me to say? It's like "It's there. Oh, well". If I hated him, I'd probably say something mean. If I was still in love with him, I'd probably say something poignant. He's a great guy, but I don't really think about it.

That didn't yield much. I ask Ryder about the life of a celebrity couple, and she's more expansive: `I remember us desperately hating being hounded. It was horrible, and it certainly took its toll on our relationship. Everday, we heard that we were either cheating on each other or that we were brken up, when we weren't. It was like this constant mosquito buzzing around us... Now, I feel I have an identity, whereas before I was so used to people telling me who I was. I was Winona! I was precocious! I was adorable! I was sexy! These labels were being slapped on me, and I didn't have a life outside of it, except when I went back to Petaluma.' LIST

VOGUE - December 1996
by John Powers

`Being with Johnny broke me in. We couldn't go a week without reading something that either wasn't true or was only half true, or was taken out of context. I wouldn't want to go through that again. Looking back, I can see that it did affect our relationship. I was at an age when I was really insecure.' She sips her Evian. `But in retrospect, I'm grateful for the experience. By the time I was 21, nothing could faze me.' LIST

US - December 1997
Little Big Woman
by Chris Heath

Soon afterward, I meet Ryder in San Francisco. Over dinner - roasted vegatables for her - I bring up the subjcet of Depp.

You were one-half of the most revered wild romance of the last decade.
[Perking up] Do you think? People don't even remember that we were together.

It's public face was very golden: the glorious-young-rebel, love- tattoos-and-total-abandon experience of its time.
It was very difficult having it so public. I think it really hurt us, hurt the relationship. It's mnade me very... My dad and mom just moved, and they have - this is so embarrassing - they have this room of just archives of me, and I was flicking through the old stuff, and it's really interesting to see how I changed in terms of talking about my relationships. I learned a lot from that - from being so open, and from being stupid.

Nonetheless, that romance was perceived as sort of utopian.
I think that's a lot to do with him. He's such a romantic figure. It was a pretty major time. It wasn't what they made it out to be: a lot of drama. There was quite a bit of that, but it was my first love and my first relationship, a fiercely deep love that I don't know that I'll ever... That first love is like that, isn't it? I don't know, it was a wild time. Half the stuff they said about us was true, and half of it wasn't.

Which half?
[Nodding] I know.

You're friends again now?
Yeah, it's really great. I mean, it's not like we're buddy-buddy. It's really nice, though, when you think about a person, to not have a pit in your stomach, or cringe, or feel heart-broken, or feel they hate you, or do I hate them? It's really nice, because after you break up you go through a couple of years of that.

You were completely out of contact?
Yeah. I think breakups are the same in any field you're in, but it is particularly hard when it's being documented and when you see the person's picture everywhere. People don't usually have that added problem when the breakup with someone. They don't have to see billboards of them. It was very painful for a long time.

In hindsight, do you have a simple thought about why it didn't work?
This sounds like such a cop-out answer, but I just don't think it was out time. I think it was our time, and then time passed. You kind of just fall together and then you fall apart, I guess. I thought about it for years, and I kind of don't really have an answer to that.

I don't even know who was doing most of the breaking up. It was mutual. It really was. And you're just kind of waiting for the other person to say so. But I do feel weird talking about it. He doesn't say a word about it. I don't know how he feels. I know I'm not saying anything that could upset him. But it's something I really want to protect.

She says that when she got in last night she wrote in her journal, as she does every night. "I think when we talked about Johnny, that triggered something in me," she says. "Because I didn't know if it was OK. I never really know if it's OK."

To talk about it from his point of view?

"Yeah, or even from my point of view," she says. "And it's just a weird thing. We've never had a discussion about it…. It was a strange thing." LIST

NOW - May 1998
I'm A Hopeless Romantic
by Gill Pringle

So Matt (Damon) won't mind then that she's about to start shooting a new film opposite old flame Johnny Depp? Er, well, he might just a bit.

`It's not as if Johnny and I are exactly buddy-buddy, but it's nice to know we can still have a friendship,' says Winona, who was engaged to Depp for four years after meeting on the set of Edward Scissorhands .

`It's good to be able to think about him without having a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, or cringing, or feeling heartbroken or like he hates me.

After you break up, you go through all of those feelings. `Break- ups are hard for anybody, but it's particularly tough when your life is being documented and you see the person's picture everywhere. Most people don't have that added problem when they break-up.'

But, according to rumours, Matt isn't quite so relaxed about Winona playing Johnny's lover in Michelangelo Antonioni's Just To Be Together.

`Matt adores Winona and is only too aware what can happen between two people on a movie set,' says a pal. `Johnny has always protested that he still loves Winona, while she has always held a special place for him in her heart because he was her first real love.

Matt feels threatened by the fact that Johnny is now single, having split up with Kate Moss. He's jealous and doesn't want anything to get in the way of what he sees as the woman of his dreams and his soul mate.'

Recalling her time with Depp, Winona says, `Dating an actor is like seeing each other on billboards. Our break-up was like a never ending story because it was such a public thing. We didn't know how to break-up. I had my first real relationship with Johnny. It was a fiercely deep love that I don't know that I'll ever...' she trails off. `The first love is like that, isn't it? It was a wild time back then.' LIST

LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE - November 1998
Leader of the Pack
LOOKS - July 1999 (reprint)
Ultimate Ingenue
by Steve Pond

She does now adhere to the lessons of her very public relationship with Johnny Depp. `You learn a lot from your first bout of being a public couple,' she says. `You learn always to leave and go places separately, live like a spy, and make plans like "Met you at two o'clock by the restroom of the cineplex". And you learn, you know, never to talk about it.' LIST

Evening Standard (UK) - 1999
World Today: Winona in fire drama over old flame Depp

Actress Winona Ryder has said she was so depressed at breaking up with fiance Johnny Depp that she went on a drinking binge and almost burned herself to death writes Liz Hodgson.

Winona, 27, said she fell asleep with a lighted cigarette and woke up to find her hotel room in flames. "I haven't visited that dark side ever since," she said. Winona, now dating Good Will Hunting star Matt Damon, told New Weekly magazine she is happier than ever.

Another of Depp's ex-girlfriends, model Kate Moss, also accidentally started a fire when she left candles burning in her room at a London clinic. LIST

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