Mini Biography: Mary Debra Winger was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1955 to a Jewish family. Her maternal grandparents called her Mary, while her parents called her Debra. (Her father named her Debra after his favorite actress, Debra Paget). The family moved to California when Debra was five. She fell in love with acting in high school but kept it a secret from her family. She was a precocious teenager, having graduated high school at just 15. She went to Israel and joined the army there, but she didn't like it and came running home after a few months. She enrolled in college majoring in criminology. She worked part-time in the local amusement park when she got thrown from a truck and suffered serious injuries. She was in the hospital when she vowed that if she ever got better, she would pursue her passion for acting.

After she recovered, she abandoned college and studied acting. Like any struggling actor, she did commercials and guest-starred on 70s TV shows like "Police Woman: Task Force: Cop Killer: Part 1 (#2.23)" (1976) and "Wonder Woman" (1976) where she played Lynda Carter's little sister, "Wonder Girl". She also made her feature film debut in the forgettable soft-core film Slumber Party '57 (1976). Her next two films French Postcards (1979) and Thank God It's Friday (1978) did absolutely nothing for her career. When Sissy Spacek said no to playing the character "Sissy" in Urban Cowboy (1980), every unknown actress in Hollywood pursued the role. Debra won the role over a then-unknown Michelle Pfeiffer and gave a star-making performance as John Travolta's wife. Her handling of the mechanical bull made her a new kind of sex symbol. However, she followed it up with a flop, Cannery Row (1982). But, she became part of one of the top grossing films of all time by providing her deep, throaty voice to the title character of _E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)_. She also received her first Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for the huge hit An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), where her on-screen love scenes with Richard Gere became just as legendary as her off-screen fights with him and director Taylor Hackford.