Alex Winter

Not to be confused with Alex Winters.
Alex Winter

Winter at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival
Born (1965-07-17) July 17, 1965
London, England
Occupation Actor, film director, screenwriter
Years active 1978–present
Spouse(s) Sonya Dawson (1995-?; divorced; 1 child)
Ramsey Ann Naito (2010-present; 2 children)

Alexander Ross "Alex" Winter (born July 17, 1965) is an English-born American actor, film director and screenwriter, best known for his role as Bill S. Preston, Esq. in the 1989 film Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and its 1991 sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. He is also well known for his role as Marko in the 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys, and for co-writing, co-directing and starring in the 1993 film Freaked.

Personal life

Winter was born in London, England. His mother, Gregg Mayer (born 1940), is a New York-born American who was a former Martha Graham dancer and founded a modern-dance company in London in the mid-1960s. His father, Ross Albert Winter (born 1937), was Australian and danced with Winter's mother's troupe.[1][2] Winter received training in dance as a child. When he was five, his family moved to Missouri, where his father ran the Mid-American Dance Company, while his mother taught dance at Washington University in St. Louis.[3][4] The two divorced in 1973.

Winter is Jewish.[5] He was married to Sonya Dawson with whom he had a son, Leroy Winter, born in 1998.[6] Winter maintains dual British and American citizenship.[7]

Career

Winter in 2013

Winter moved to New York City in 1978 and began performing as an actor on and off Broadway. In 1983, he was accepted into the Film School at New York University (NYU). While at college, he met fellow aspiring filmmaker Tom Stern. The two collaborated on a number of 16mm short films and both graduated with honours.

As an actor, Winter spent many years on Broadway with supporting roles in productions of The King and I, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, and the American premiere of Simon Gray's Close of Play at the Manhattan Theatre Club. After completing NYU film school, he and Tom Stern moved out to Hollywood, where the two wrote and directed a number of short films and music videos. Winter continued to find work as an actor, landing notable roles in such big productions as The Lost Boys and Rosalie Goes Shopping. In 1989, Winter found international success when he co-starred with Keanu Reeves as Bill S. Preston in the smash-hit comedy Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and its 1991 sequel, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

Following the success of Bill & Ted, Winter and creative collaborators Tom Stern and Tim Burns were hired to develop a sketch comedy show for MTV. The result, 1991's The Idiot Box, was a success for the network, but the channel's budgetary problems prevented them from filming additional seasons, and it was canceled after six episodes. Winter, Stern and Burns accepted a $12 million deal from 20th Century Fox to film their own feature film, which would end up becoming 1993's Freaked. While the film was never widely released, despite positive reviews from The New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly,[8] Freaked went on to become a cult favourite, through festivals, TV and DVD, and was cited by Entertainment Weekly, on their list of Top Ten Comedies of the Nineties.

Winter did not return to directing until 1999, when he filmed Fever. The film was shown at film festivals worldwide, including Official Selection in the Director's Fortnight at Cannes. New York Daily News praised the film, calling it "a claustrophobic mind bender. Winter sustains an aura of creepiness worthy of Roman Polanski."

Winter works between his American home base and London, where he directs music videos and commercials. Highlights of his work include directing several installments of the popular Peugeot Thelma & Louise advertising campaign, as well as campaigns for Ford, the global launch of the all CGI Tony the Tiger for Frosties, and award-winning spots for Supercuts and Google in the United States.

In 2007, Winter returned to acting after a nearly 14-year absence in a guest spot on the crime series Bones. He has a recurring role as the voice of "King Mole Man" on the Adult Swim show, Saul of the Mole Men, which was created by long-time friend Tom Stern, and has directed the live-action adaptation of the hit Cartoon Network series Ben 10, which aired in November 2007 and garnered the highest ratings in Cartoon Network history. He directed its sequel, Ben 10: Alien Swarm which aired on Cartoon Network in November 2009 and captured over 16 million viewers in its premiere weekend. He has reportedly been chosen to write the screenplay for the Howard Stern-produced remake of Rock 'n' Roll High School.[9] His latest project is a 3D-remake of the 1987 horror film The Gate which was scheduled for release in 2011.[10]

In April 2011, Winter's Bill & Ted co-star Keanu Reeves confirmed that a third installment of the film series was underway.[11] Winter's confirmed work on Bill & Ted 3 was still in progress in a 2014 article on the original film's 25th anniversary.[12]

In October 2011, he made an appearance on the eighth-season finale That Metal Show, attempting to stump Eddie Trunk.

In July 2015, Winter began work on a biographical documentary of the rock guitarist and composer Frank Zappa. The Zappa Family Trust publicly gave its approval to Winter's plans for the film.[13]

Filmography

As director

Theatrical feature films

TV and home video

Music videos

As actor in works by other directors

Theatrical feature films

TV

Music videos

Notes

References

  1. ↑ Alex Winter Biography – Yahoo! Movies
  2. ↑ "Alex Winter Biography (1965-)". filmreference.com.
  3. ↑ "Dude! It's Alex Winter!". CNN. November 12, 2002. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
  4. ↑ "Bill and Ted – Articles Archive". billandted.org. Archived from the original on November 20, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Daniel Stern". Jewish United Fund. Retrieved October 2, 2010.
  6. ↑ "Alex Winter, the Slacker from Bill & Ted's Excellent Edventure, Finds Directing More Bodacious Than Acting". November 18, 2002. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  7. ↑ Kevin Pollak interview with Alex Winter (September 8, 2014).
  8. ↑ Burr, Ty (October 15, 1993). "EW review of 'Freaked'". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 21, 2007.
  9. ↑ Sciretta, Peter (July 30, 2008), Alex Winter to Write Howard Stern's Rock ‘n’ Roll High School Remake, /Film, retrieved June 9, 2010
  10. ↑ "Remaking The Gate – Interview Alex Winter". screen/read. Archived from the original on September 9, 2010. Retrieved August 12, 2010.
  11. ↑ "Bill & Ted 3".
  12. ↑ Freeman, Hadley (April 17, 2014). "Bill & Ted's 25th birthday: party on, dudes!". The Guardian. Retrieved April 18, 2014.
  13. ↑ "Frank Zappa Documentary by Alex Winter Starts Production". Rolling Stone.
  14. ↑ Cangialosi, Jason. "Interview: Alex Winter on Napster Documentary 'Downloaded'". Yahoo! Movies. Archived from the original on May 13, 2012. Retrieved May 1, 2012.
  15. ↑ "Kickstarter: Deep Web: The Untold Story of Bitcoin and the Silk Road". Retrieved December 18, 2013.

External links

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