Alex Winter was born in London, England where his New York-bred mother, Gregg Mayer, a former Martha Graham dancer, founded a modern-dance company in the mid-60's together with her Australian husband, Ross Winter. When Alex was five, his family moved to St. Louis Missouri, where his parents formed the Mid America Dance Company. In an August 12, 1991 article in People magazine Alex says, "Whenever other companies would tour St. Louis, these crazed bohemian dancers would sleep all over the floor. My memories of childhood are of waking up with a foot in my face." As you can probably tell, Alex did not grow up with the burning desire to be a dancer. However, in the August 1-7, 1991 addition of Drama-Logue magazine he said, "I was raised around artists. I became attached at a very young age to theater and acting and film. Buster Keaton was my first big hero. That's what I wanted to do. Not necessarily just be a comedian, but wanted to make films."

Alex started acting at a young age, appearing in commercials and the stage. "Whenever the theater department needed a kid they would pluck me out of wherever I was and stick me in a Renaissance costume and put me on stage. I thought it was a lot of fun. The more physical it was, the more fun I had." His parents divorced before he was 11 and he moved to New York with his mother, where he appeared in The King and I starring Yul Brenner, he played John Darling in Peter Pan starring Sandy Duncan, and portrayed a street urchin in a local production of Oliver! with Vincent Price. "I was working with a lot of great actors. Especially doing off-Broadway stuff. I just observed. I knew what I liked and what I didn't like. I would just observe those I like. And I read anything I could get my hands on. All the theory. I am still reading."

In his early 20's, Alex studied film making at New York University, where he met fellow student Tom Stern. The two hit it off and ended up leaving college and formed their own production company, "Stern Winter Productions." Moving to Los Angeles in 1986 the two busied themselves by shooting short films and music videos for artists like Butthole Surfers, Ice Cube, Extreme, Helmet, Foetus and Red Hot Chili Peppers and writing spec scripts, while Alex was doing acting to pay the bills.

His first major role as an actor was in the cult vampire movie The Lost Boys in 1987 when he was aged twenty-two. But of course, the "big break" that drew international attention to Alex was the role of Bill S. Preston, Esq. in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in 1989. He and Keanu hit it off at their first meeting. "Keanu and I auditioned together for the first time in the very early stages. Something clicked. The comedy was there. We were both improvising a lot. A lot of stuff we took with us to the screen; our sense of goofy comedy, our love of improv. The little studying I had done was with improv people. Most of my learning to act was doing theater, but I was a real big fan of Second City and that school of acting; so was Keanu. That's what clicked. We created this patter, this dialogue that went back and forth. It was one of the most satisfying auditions I ever had, given the fact I had never met the guy before. Most time when you go into an audition with an actor you've never met, the chemistry is not there. It can be very grueling and unsatisfying. Some auditions can be satisfying even if you don't get the part. It was a blast, I really enjoyed it." When asked how much of the improvisation actually ended up in the finished Bill and Ted movies, Alex said, "A lot came from the script and a lot came from just the way we talk to each other; the dialogue and manner of two friends who are so close that they have their own manner of speaking to each other. That came out of improv, the way we related to each other. Even off camera we relate to each other in the same kind of goofy way."

After Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and it's 1991 sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey cleaned up at the box office, Alex was approached by MTV to "be their afternoon VJ as Ted". After politely declining ("I told them no fucking way") Alex used his "in" status with the network to pitch what was to become The Idiot Box, a limited run series of Winter & Stern material with videos sandwiched in.

In 1993 he co-wrote, co-directed and acted in Freaked with directing partner and friend Tom Stern and Tim Burns. They made it for Joe Roth at 20th Century Fox. "Roth saw it as a healthy, interesting alternative to a lot of the other youth comedies going around." Unfortunately, towards the end of the film's shoot, Roth left the studio and was replaced by a very conservative chairman. "It's hard for certain movies , because if you're not making something that's really safe, then you're going to need someone who's going to protect you all the way through release. The new organization that came in, thought the cult movie was pretty risky to start off with." The film also stars Randy Quaid, Keanu Reeves, Brooke Shields, Bobcat Goldthwait as a human sock puppet and Mr. T as The Bearded Lady. Freaked has been acclaimed by many critics including The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly, who heralded the movie on their list of "Top Ten greatest comedies of the Nineties". Long a cult favorite, Freaked was recently re-released in a special edition dvd by Anchor Bay.

These days, Alex is doing what he's always loved best: making films, only now he does most of his work behind the camera rather than in front of it. He's been working between his New York home base and London, producing short films, music videos and commercials. His commercials in the United Kingdom have been produced through The Brave Film Company, a company he co-founded in 1994. In 1999 he wrote and directed Fever, a psychological thriller which stars Henry Thomas, Teri Hatcher, Bill Duke and David O'Hara. Fever received favorable reviews in the media and was shown on a dozen film festivals, national and international. The New York Daily News praised the film as "A claustrophobic mindbender". Film is a great vehicle for conveying dread and madness and Fever has all the elements of a great ghost story.

In 2002 he formed the New York based commercial production house Hyena Films, together with director Alex Halpern, and in 2005 he joined forces with PhilsFilms an LA based production house. He directed a DVD for Bill Laswell's band Tabla Beat Science in 2003 entitled: Talamanam Sound Clash filmed with 12 cameras! at the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco. He's also a contributing director of comedy sketches for Jimmy Kimmel Live a daily late night talkshow on ABC. And he directed a VH1 pilot entitled Dirty Famous.

In 2007 he played a guest-star role on the immensely popular Fox TV Series, Bones and had a recurring vocal role as King Mole Man on Adult Swim’s underground hit, Saul of the Mole Men. Also in that year he produced and directed Cartoon Network’s live-action movie event, Ben 10: Race Against Time. The television premiere garnered the highest ratings in Cartoon Network history. Currently, Alex is in pre-production to produce and direct Ben 10: Alien Force, the sequel to last year’s hit. He is also writing the remake of the 70’s classic Rock 'n' Roll High School for producer Howard Stern.

Future directing projects in development include Downloaded: The Story of Napster, which Alex wrote for Shawn Fanning (the Napster himself) and We're here to Help, a political satire starring Alan Rickman, for Crossroads Films. It stars among others, Alan Rickman, Elodie Bouchez and Bill Duke.

Last updated: September 9, 2008

THE EQUALIZER
1985
Character name: Jeffrey
Episode: Mama's Boy