Ep. 160 – Debra Winger (feat. Murtada Elfadl)

The B-Side: A Film Stage Podcast

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. Today we talk about the great Debra Winger! Our B-Sides include Legal Eagles, Betrayed, The Sheltering Sky, and Forget Paris. Our guest is the inestimable Murtada Elfadl, Culture Writer, Critic, and Film Curator. We discuss Winger’s stratospheric rise to stardom, her indescribable performance in Terms of Endearment, and her (unfair?) reputation for being “difficult.” There’s also plenty of discussion about Rosanna Arquette’s documentary Searching for Debra Winger, a film in which Arquette speaks with many famous actresses about aging in Hollywood. The motivation of the piece was partly motivated by Winger’s exodus from the business for over half a decade in the mid-1990s. There’s also conversation about Shirley MacLaine's 1984 Oscars speech, Tom Berenger being deeply proud of Betrayed and his performance in the film, and all those NBA players that appear in Forget Paris. Janet Maslin and Roger Ebert’s superb reviews of Betrayed are mentioned, as is Debra’s perfect laugh. Finally, we touch on when Raquel Welch sued MGM and won for being fired from Cannery Row (Winger replaced her in the role), Winger’s dropping out of A League of Their Own after Madonna was cast, Melanie Griffith and William Hurt being director Bernardo Bertolucci’s first choices for the leads in The Sheltering Sky, and Debra Winger’s infamous Watch What Happens Live episode. Be sure to give us a follow on Bluesky at @tfsbside.bsky.social. Enjoy!