Winona Rider

Winona Laura Horowitz[1] (born October 29, 1971), better known under her professional name Winona Ryder, is an American actress. She started her career in 1986. Although Ryder made her screen debut in Lucas (1986), her first significant role came in 1988 with Beetle Juice as Lydia Deetz, a Goth teenager, in a performance that gained her critical and commercial recognition. After making various appearances in film and television, Ryder continued her career with the cult film Heathers (1989) in a prominent and critically acclaimed performance. Her subsequent roles have won her not only critical praise but numerous film awards. In 2000, Ryder received a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California.[2]
Ryder is known for her relationship with actor Johnny Depp throughout the early 1990s. She also received noteworthy media attention for her participation in the investigation of the kidnapping and murder of Polly Klaas in 1993, who was from Ryder's hometown of Petaluma, California. Ryder also received worldwide attention after her arrest on December 12, 2001 for shoplifting from a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills, California.

Born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, she was named after the nearby city of Winona.[3] She was given her middle name, Laura, because of her parents' friendship with Aldous Huxley's wife, Laura Huxley. Her mother, Cynthia Palmer (née Istas), is an author, as well as a video producer and editor.[3] Her father, Michael Horowitz, is an author, editor, publisher and antiquarian bookseller.[3] Ryder's mother is a Buddhist and her father is an atheist.[4] Regarding her ancestry, Ryder has described herself as "Jewish",[3][5][6] her paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia, and relatives of hers died in The Holocaust. Ryder has one sibling, a younger brother, Uri, an older half-brother, Jubal, and an older half-sister, Sunyata. Ryder's family friends included her godfather, LSD guru Timothy Leary, beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and science fiction novelist Philip K. Dick.[3]
In 1978, when Ryder was seven years old, she and her family relocated to Rainbow, a commune near Elk, California, where they lived with seven other families on a 300-acre (1.2 km²) plot of land. As the remote property had no electricity or television sets, Ryder began to devote her time to reading and became an avid fan of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.[7][3] She developed an interest in acting after her mother showed her a few movies on a screen in the family barn. At age 10, Ryder and her family moved on again, this time to Petaluma, California. During her first week at the Kenilworth Middle School, she was bullied by a group of her peers who mistook her for an effeminate, scrawny boy.[3] As a result, she ended up being homeschooled that year. In 1983, when Ryder was 12, she enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater in nearby San Francisco, where she took her first acting lessons. Ryder graduated from Petaluma High School with a 4.0 GPA in 1989.[8] She has also revealed that she suffers from aquaphobia due to the trauma caused by an incident in which she nearly drowned at age 12.[3] This caused problems when she had to act in some of the underwater scenes in Alien Resurrection (1997) and the scenes had to be reshot numerous times

In 1985, Ryder sent a videotaped audition, where she recited a monologue from the novel Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger, to appear in the film Desert Bloom. She was rejected and the part went to Annabeth Gish.[7][3] Despite her rejection, David Seltzer, a writer and director, soon noticed her talent and cast her in his 1986 film Lucas. When asked how she wanted her name to appear in the credits, she suggested "Ryder" as her surname as a Mitch Ryder album which belonged to her father was playing in the background.[7] Her next movie was Square Dance (1987), where her teenage character creates a bridge between two different worlds — a traditional farm in the middle of nowhere and a large city. Ryder won acclaim for her role, and The Los Angeles Times called her performance in Square Dance "a remarkable debut".[9] Both films, however, failed to gain Ryder any notice, and were only marginally successful commercially. Director Tim Burton decided to cast Ryder in his film Beetle Juice (1988), after being impressed with her performance in Lucas.[10] In the film, she plays gothic teenager Lydia Deetz. Lydia's family moves to a haunted house populated by ghosts played by Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Keaton. Lydia quickly finds herself the only human with a strong empathy toward the ghosts and their situation. The film was a success at the box office, and Ryder's performance and the overall film received mostly positive reviews from critics.[11]
Ryder landed the role of Veronica Sawyer in the 1989 independent film Heathers. The film, a satirical take on teenage life, revolves around Veronica, who is ultimately forced to choose between the will of society and her own heart after her boyfriend (Christian Slater) begins killing popular high school students. Ryder's agent initially begged her to turn the role down, saying the film would "ruin her career".[3] Reaction to the film was mostly lukewarm,[12] but Ryder's performance was critically embraced, with The Washington Post stating Ryder is "Hollywood's most impressive inge'nue [sic] ... Ryder ... makes us love her teen-age murderess, a bright, funny girl with a little Bonnie Parker in her. She is the most likable, best-drawn young adult protagonist since the sexual innocent of Gregory's Girl."[13] The film was a box office flop, yet achieved status as a predominant cult film.[14] Later that year, she starred in Great Balls of Fire!, playing the 13-year-old bride (and cousin) of Jerry Lee Lewis. The film was a box office failure and received largley divided reviews from critics. In April 1989, she played the title role in the music video for Mojo Nixon's "Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child".[15] In 1990, Ryder was selected for four film roles. In Edward Scissorhands (1990), she played the leading female role alongside her then-boyfriend Johnny Depp. The film reunited Tim Burton and Ryder, who had previously worked together on Beetlejuice in 1988. Edward Scissorhands was a significant box office success, grossing US$56 million at the United States box office and receiving much critical devotion.[16][17] Later that year, she withdrew from a role in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III (after traveling to Rome for filming) due to exhaustion.[18] Eventually, Coppola's daughter Sofia Coppola was cast in the role. Ryder's third role was in the family comedy-drama Mermaids (1990), which co-starred Cher and Christina Ricci. Mermaids was a moderate box office success and was embraced critically. Ryder's performance was also acclaimed; critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "Winona Ryder, in another of her alienated outsider roles, generates real charisma."[19] For her performance, Ryder received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.[20] Ryder then performed alongside Cher and Christina Ricci in the video for "The Shoop Shoop Song", the theme from Mermaids. Following Mermaids she starred in the lead role in box office flop Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1991).

In 1991, Ryder played a young taxicab driver who dreams of becoming a mechanic in Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth. The film was only given a limited release at the box office, but received critical praise.[21] Ryder then starred in the dual roles of Count Dracula's reincarnated love interest Mina Murray and Dracula's past lover Princess Elisabeta, in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), a project she brought to director Francis Ford Coppola's attention.[3] In 1993, she starred in the melodrama The House of the Spirits, based on Isabel Allende's novel. Ryder played the love interest of Antonio Banderas' character. Principal filming was done in Denmark and Portugal. The film was poorly reviewed and a box office flop, grossing just $6 million on its $40 million budget.[22] Ryder also starred in The Age of Innocence with Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis, a film based on a novel by Edith Wharton and helmed by director Martin Scorsese, whom Ryder considers "the best director in the world".[23] Her role in this movie won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress[20] as well as an Academy Award nomination in the same category.[24]
Ryder's next role was in the Generation X drama Reality Bites (1994), directed by Ben Stiller, playing a young woman searching for direction in her life. Her performance received acclaim and the studio hoped the film would gross a substantial amount of money, yet it flopped.[25] Bruce Feldman, Universal Pictures' Vice-President of Marketing said: "The media labeled it as a Generation X picture, while we thought it was a comedy with broad appeal."[25] The studio placed TV ads during programs chosen for their appeal to 12–34-year-olds and in interviews Stiller was careful not to mention the phrase "Generation X".[25] In 1994, Ryder was handpicked to play the lead role of Josephine March in Little Women, an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel. The film received widespread praise; critic Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film was the greatest adaptation of the novel, and also remarked on Ryder's performance: "Ms. Ryder, whose banner year also includes a fine comic performance in 'Reality Bites,' plays Jo with spark and confidence. Her spirited presence gives the film an appealing linchpin, and she plays the self-proclaimed 'man of the family' with just the right staunchness."[26] She also received an Best Actress Oscar nomination the following year.[24] She also made a guest appearance in The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Rival" as Allison Taylor, whose intelligence and over-achieving personality makes her a rival of Lisa's. Her next starring role was in How to Make an American Quilt (1995), an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Whitney Otto, co-starring Anne Bancroft. Ryder plays a college graduate who spends her summer hiatus at her grandmother's property to ponder on her boyfriend's recent marriage proposal. The film was not a commercial success, nor was it popular with critics.

Ryder made several film appearances in 1996, the first in Boys. The film failed to become a box office success and attracted mostly negative critical reaction. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated that "Boys is a low-rent, dumbed-down version of Before Sunrise, with a rent-a-plot substituting for clever dialogue."[29] Her next role was in Looking for Richard, Al Pacino's documentary on a production of Shakespeare's Richard III, which grossed only $1 million at the box office, but drew moderate critical acclaim.[30][31] She also starred as the lead in The Crucible, alongside Daniel Day-Lewis and Joan Allen. The film, an adaptation of Arthur Miller's play, centered on the Salem witch trials. The film was expected to be a success, considering its budget, but became a large failure.[32] Despite this, it received acclaim critically, and Ryder's performance was lauded, with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone saying, "Ryder offers a transfixing portrait of warped innocence."[33] In December 1996, Ryder accepted a role as a humanoid robot in Alien Resurrection (1997), alongside Sigourney Weaver, who had appeared in the entire Alien trilogy. Ryder's brother, Yuri, was a major fan of the film series, and when asked, she took the role. The film became one of the least successful entries in the Alien film series, but was considered a success as it grossed $161 million worldwide.[34] Weaver's and Ryder's performances drew mostly positive reviews, and Ryder won a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Best Actress. Ryder then starred in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998), after Drew Barrymore turned down Ryder's role, in an ensemble cast.[3] The film satirizes the lives of several celebrities.
In 1999, she performed in and served as an executive producer for Girl, Interrupted, based on the 1993 autobiography of Susanna Kaysen. The film had been in project and post-production since late 1996, but it took time to surface. Ryder was deeply attached to the film, considering it her "child of the heart".[3] Ryder starred as Kaysen, who has borderline personality disorder and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for recovery. Ryder starred alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Angelina Jolie. While Ryder was expected to make her comeback with her leading role, the film instead became the "welcome-to-Hollywood coronation" for Jolie,[35] who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. Jolie thanked Ryder in her acceptance speech.[36] The same year, Ryder was parodied in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. The following year, she starred in the romantic comedy Autumn in New York, alongside Richard Gere. The film revolves around a relationship between an older man (Gere) and a younger woman (Ryder). Autumn in New York received mixed reviews, but was a commercial success, grossing $90 million at the worldwide box office.[37][38] Ryder then played a nun of a secret society loosely connected to the Roman Catholic Church and determined to prevent Armageddon in Lost Souls (2000), which was a commercial failure. Ryder refused to do commercial promotion for the film.[3] Later in 2000, she was one of several celebrities who made a small cameo appearance in Zoolander. On October 6, 2000, Ryder received her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located directly in front of the Johnny Grant building next to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. She was the 2,165th recipient of this honor.

Ryder had a moderate hiatus after her shoplifting incident in 2001 (see below). The book Conversations with Woody Allen reports that in 2003 film director Woody Allen wanted to cast Robert Downey, Jr. and Ryder in his film Melinda and Melinda, but was unable to do so because "I couldn't get insurance on them ... We couldn't get bonded. The completion bonding companies would not bond the picture unless we could insure them. [...] We were heartbroken because I had worked with Winona before [on Celebrity] and thought she was perfect for this and wanted to work with her again."[39][40]
In 2002, Ryder appeared in two films. The first was a romantic comedy titled Mr. Deeds with Adam Sandler. This was her most commercially successful movie to date, earning over $126 million in the United States alone.[41] She played a cynical reporter for an unscrupulous television program. The second film was the science fiction drama S1m0ne in which she portrayed a glamorous star who is replaced by a computer simulated actress due to the clandestine machinations of a director, portrayed by her Looking For Richard costar Al Pacino.

In 2006, after her hiatus, Ryder appeared in Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly, a science fiction film based on Philip K. Dick's critically acclaimed 1977 novel. Ryder starred alongside Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey, Jr., and Woody Harrelson. Live action scenes were transformed with rotoscope software and the film was entirely animated. A Scanner Darkly was screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and the 2006 Seattle International Film Festival. Critics disagreed over the film's merits; Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times found the film "engrossing" and wrote that "the brilliance of [the film] is how it suggests, without bombast or fanfare, the ways in which the real world has come to resemble the dark world of comic books."[42] Similarly, Matthew Turner of ViewLondon, believing the film to be "engaging" and "beautifully animated", also praised the film for its "superb performances" and original, thought-provoking screenplay.[43] Ryder also recently appeared in the comedy The Darwin Awards, starring alongside Joseph Fiennes. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2006.[44]
Ryder also confirmed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly she is reuniting with Heathers screenwriter Daniel Waters for the surreal black comedy Sex and Death 101 (2007).[45] The story follows the sexual odysseys of successful businessman Roderick Blank, played by Simon Baker, who receives a mysterious e-mail on the eve of his wedding, listing all of his past and future sex partners. "We will be doing a sequel to Heathers next." Ryder stated. "There's Heathers in the real world! We have to keep going!"[45]. In a more recent interview Ryder was quoted as saying on the speculation of a Heathers sequel: "I don't know how much of the movie is official; it's a ways away. But it takes place in Washington and Christian Slater agreed to come back and make an Obi-Wan-type appearance. It's very funny."[46]
Ryder also appeared in David Wain's comedy The Ten, alongside Jessica Alba, Paul Rudd, Justin Theroux, Famke Janssen, Oliver Platt, and Adam Brody. The film centers around ten stories, each of them inspired by one of the Ten Commandments. The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival 2007 on January 10, 2007,[47] with a theatrical release on August 3, 2007. Ryder will play the female lead opposite Wes Bentley and Ray Romano in Geoffrey Haley's offbeat romantic drama The Last Word.[48] She has also signed up to appear as a newscaster in the upcoming movie version of The Informers,[49] will join Robin Wright and Julianne Moore in Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, which is scheduled to start filming in April 2008 in Connecticut,[50] and will appear in Paramount Pictures' and director J. J. Abrams's Star Trek (2009), as Spock's mother Amanda Grayson, a role originally played by Jane Wyatt.

Ryder has had many high-profile relationships with actors. She was engaged to actor Johnny Depp for three years beginning in July 1990. She met Depp at the Great Balls of Fire! premiere in June 1989, two months later they began dating.[52] During their relationship, Depp had a tattoo placed on his arm reading "Winona Forever", which he had altered to "Wino Forever" after their separation.[53] Ryder later had serious relationships with Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner, and actor Matt Damon.[54] Ryder also told W Magazine in a June 2002 issue that she is close friends with comedian and actor Jimmy Fallon.[55] She was also close friends with actress Gwyneth Paltrow, until they reportedly "grew apart" in the late 1990s.

Winona Laura Horowitz, 1971. október 29-én a Minnesota állambeli Winonában született (innen kapta keresztnevét). A hippi, szabadszellemű Michael és Cindy Horowitz lánygyermeként jött a napvilágra, ami nagyban meghatározta azt, hogy Winona gyermekkora nem volt szokványos. A Horowitz-család egy technikai vívmányokat nélkülöző kommunában telepedett le a kaliforniai Northernben, ahol Winonának és testvéreinek még tv-nézési lehetőségük sem volt.

A fiatal Winona helyette egy moziban nézett filmeket, amelyben édesanyja dolgozott, és bevetette magát a szépirodalom olvasásába. A klasszikus filmek nézésének volt köszönhető, hogy a lányt komolyan el kezdte érdekelni a filmezés, illetve a Zabhegyező hőse, Holden Caulfield volt a másik örökre meghatározó élmény Winona számára, ami szintén az alternatív filmszerepekre fordította a figyelmét.

8 éves korában, Winona szülei úgy döntöttek, hogy visszaköltöznek a kaliforniai Petalumába. Bár vékony alkatú volt, Winona mégis verekedős fiúnak hatott az első pár hétben az iskolában. Emiatt otthon volt kénytelen befejezni a tanulmányait, majd későb jelentkezett az American Conservatory Theater-be San Franciscoban. Mialatt az American Conservatory Theater színpadán szerepelt, Winonát felfedezte egy tehetségkutató, aki elvitte egy meghallgatásra a Desert Bloom c. filmhez, amelyben a főszerepet a legendás Jon Voight játszotta. Nem kapta meg a szerepet, de a felvétele zöld utat jelentett a Triad Artists-hoz. Az ügynökségnek köszönhetően, Winona szerepet kapott az 1986-as Lucas c. filmben. Bár nem volt egy jelentős film, mégis mérföldkövet jelentett Winona karrierjében, mivel ekkor szerepelt először úgy, mint Winona Ryder (egy Mitch Ryder albumról kérte a névváltoztatást). Ezt számos felejthető filmszerep követte, míg Winonára végül felfigyeltek az 1988-as Tim Burton rendezte komédiában, a Beetlejuice-ban nyújtott alakítása után. A szellem-barát, dark tinédzser szerepe elindította Winona "sötét" szerepeinek sorát, amelyeket mintha rászabtak volna. A Heathers c. film, amelyben Winona szintén dark szerepet játszik egy nagyon "sötét" filmben, Winona rajongóinak a kedvenc filmje.

Miután feltűnt a Great Balls of Fire! c. filmben, Winona ismét egy Tim Burton-filmben játszott, Edward Scissorhands szerelmét alakította, és ez volt egyik legemlékezetesebb szerepe. Ugyanabban az évben Cher lányát játszotta a Mermaids c. filmben. Ezek után Winona új szakaszba lépett, amelyben jóval érettebb szerepeket játszhatott és nagyobb hatású filmekben tünhetett fel. Játszott egy független filmben, a Night on Earth c. Jarmush-filmben, majd ismét meghatározó szerepet kapott - Michael Corleones lányát alakíthatta a The Godfather 3. részében. Sajnos, Winona kénytelen volt otthagyni a filmfelvételeket egy súlyos fertőzés miatt. Viszont aláírt egy szerződést a Creative Artists ügynökséggel, és megkapta Francis Ford Coppola rendezte Bram Stoker's Dracula c. film forgatókönyvét. A híres rendező beválogatta a szereplőgárdába és ráosztotta a vérszívó gróf szerelmének a szerepét. Winona teljesen felnőtt és karrierje szárnyalt. Ismét jelentős szerephez jutott, amikor Daniel Day Lewis partnereként játszott a The Age of Innocence c. filmben. Alakítását a Legjobb Mellékszereplőnek járó Oscar-djíra való jelöléssel jutalmazták.

Miután visszatért a modern valóságba Gen-Xer szerepében a Reality Bites c. filmben, Winona ismét régi időket idéző filmekben szerepelt, a The House of Spirits és a Little Women filmadaptációkban nyújtott alakításaiért a Legjobb Színésznő Oscar-díjára jelölték. A Little Women c. filmet Polly Klaas emlékének dedikálta, akit szülővárosában raboltak el és öltek meg. Miután szerepelt olyan filmekben, mint a How to Make an American Quilt; Al Pacinoval a Looking for Richard-ban; a The Crucible adaptációjában; a sci-fi Alien Resurrection-ben; valamint Woody Allen sztárokat felvonultató Celebrity c. filmjében Leo DiCaprio, Famke Janssen és Charlize Theron mellett, Winona főszerepet játszott és executive producer volt a Girl, Interrupted c. filmben, az üstökös Angelina Jolie-val. Annak ellenére, hogy Winona a hollywoodi mozikban már a 80-as évek közepe óta játszik, első talk show-beli megjelenése a Jay Leno vezette The Tonight Show-ban volt, amelyben a Girl, Interrupted-ről volt szó. Nemrégiben láthattuk a szentimentális Autumn in New York c. romantikus filmben, a sokkal idősebb Richard Gere partnereként, illetve a Lost Souls c. thrillerben. 1997-ben a People Magazine a Világ legszebb 50 embere közé sorolta, de biztosan állíthatjuk, hogy nemcsak a People tekinti Winonát gyönyörűnek, és erről barátjai és szerelmei hosszú listája is tanúskodik. A színésznő 3 évig volt eljegyezve Johnny Depp-pel, hosszan tartó viszonya volt David Pirnerrel, és együttjárt olyan hírességekkel, mint Christian Slater, Daniel Day Lewis, David Duchovny, Chris Noth, Matt Damon és Beck.... És nemcsak Winona szépségét dicsérhetnénk, hanem különböző filmszerepei széles palettáját, természetes báját és ragyogó tehetségét, mindazt, amit biztosítja, hogy még sokáig láthatjuk őt a mozivásznon.

Paul Wolfowitz

Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, and President of the World Bank. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, working on issues of international economic development, Africa and public-private partnerships,^[2] and chairman of the US-Taiwan Business Council.^[3] As Deputy Secretary of Defense, he was "a major architect of President Bush's Iraq policy and ... its most hawkish advocate."After serving two years, he resigned as president of the World Bank Group "ending a protracted and tumultuous battle over his stewardship, sparked by a promotion he arranged for his companion."

The second child of Jacob "Jack" Wolfowitz (1910–1981) and Lillian Dundes, Paul Wolfowitz "was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a Polish Jewish immigrant family, and grew up mainly in Ithaca, New York, where his father was a professor of statistical theory at Cornell University."^[10][11] "In addition to being prolific in research" and "very well read," according to Shelemyahu Zacks, Jacob Wolfowitz "fought at the time for the liberation of Soviet Jewry. He was a friend and strong supporter of the state of Israel, AIPAC member and had many friends and admirers there."^[12] Strongly influenced by his father, according to Eric Schmitt, Paul Wolfowitz became "a soft-spoken former aspiring-mathematician-turned-policymaker ... [whose] world views ... were forged by family history and in the halls of academia rather than in the jungles of Vietnam or the corridors of Congress ... [His father] ... escaped Poland after World War I. The rest of his father's family perished in the Holocaust."^[13] (Here Eric Schmitt is mistaken as Jacob Wolfowitz simply emigrated.)

As a boy, Wolfowitz devoured books about the Holocaust and Hiroshima—what he calls 'the polar horrors'".^[4] Speaking of the influence of the Holocaust on his views, Wolfowitz said:

"That sense of what happened in Europe in World War II has shaped a lot of my views ... It's a very bad thing when people exterminate other people, and people persecute minorities. It doesn't mean you can prevent every such incident in the world, but it's also a mistake to dismiss that sort of concern as merely humanitarian and not related to real interest."^[13]

Before first moving to Ithaca, in the fall of 1952 for his father's new post, the Wolfowitzes lived in Manhattan: "I was born in Brooklyn but we grew up in Manhattan, one block down on Morningside Drive ... from the President of Columbia who for part of that time was Dwight Eisenhower."^[14][15] After teaching for a year at Cornell, his father took a year long sabbatical and was accompanied by his family, spending half the time at UCLA, and half at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1957, Paul Wolfowitz lived in Israel, while his father was a visiting professor at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion IIT), in Haifa.^[12][5]

Wolfowitz took classes at Cornell University while still a student at Ithaca High School.^[16] In the mid-1960s, while they were both undergraduate students at Cornell, he met Clare Selgin, who later became an anthropologist. They married in 1968, had three children, lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland, separated in 1999, and, according to some sources, became legally separated in 2001 and divorced in 2002.^{[10][11][5][17][18]}

In late 1999, Wolfowitz began dating Shaha Ali Riza. Their relationship led to controversy later, during his presidency of the World Bank Group.^[5][19]

Wolfowitz speaks five languages in addition to English; "Wolfowitz taught himself Arabic in the 1980s, when he was working at the State Department," and "He also speaks French, German, Hebrew, and Indonesian."

Cornell University

Wolfowitz entered Cornell University in 1961, on full scholarship. He was a member of the Telluride Association, a non-profit organization founded in 1910.^[11] He lived in the Telluride House through academic year 1962 to 1963, while philosophy professor Allan Bloom served as a faculty mentor living in the house.^[11] Schmitt observes that Wolfowitz first "became a protégé of the political philosopher Allan Bloom, and then of Albert Wohlstetter, the father of hard-line conservative strategic thinking at the University of Chicago."^[13] In August 1963, "when he was nineteen, he and his mother attended the civil-rights march on Washington organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. and others".^[5][11]

Though he "majored in mathematics and chemistry ... he was profoundly moved by John Hersey's Hiroshima and shifted his focus toward politics. 'One of the things that ultimately led me to leave mathematics and go into political science was thinking I could prevent nuclear war,' he said."^[13]

Wolfowitz graduated in 1965 with a Bachelor's degree degree in mathematics and chemistry. Against his father's wishes, Wolfowitz decided to go to graduate school to study politics.^[11]

University of Chicago

Following his graduation from Cornell, Wolfowitz attended the University of Chicago in order to study under Leo Strauss. He completed his PhD dissertation under Albert Wohlstetter. In the summer of 1969, Wohlstetter arranged for his students Wolfowitz, Wilson, and Richard Perle to join the Committee to Maintain a Prudent Defense Policy which was set up by Cold War architects Paul Nitze and Dean Acheson.

From 1970 to 1972, Wolfowitz taught in the Department of Political Science at Yale University, where one of his students was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.^[20]

In 1972, Wolfowitz earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago, writing his doctoral dissertation on "nuclear proliferation in the Middle East".

In the 1970s Wolfowitz served as an aide to Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson, who influenced several neoconservatives, including Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Jackson "was the quintessential 'Cold War liberal.' He was an outspoken and influential advocate of increased military spending and a hard line against the Soviet Union, while supporting social welfare programs, civil rights, and the labor movement."^[22]

In 1972 U.S. President Richard Nixon, under pressure from Senator Jackson, dismissed the head of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and replaced him with Fred Ikle. Ikle brought in a new team including Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz wrote research papers and drafted testimony, as he had previously done at the Committee to Maintain a Prudent Defense Policy. He traveled with Ikle to strategic arms limitations talks in Paris and other European cities. He helped dissuade South Korea from reprocessing plutonium that could be diverted into a clandestine weapons program.

Under President Gerald Ford, the American intelligence agencies had come under attack over their annually published National Intelligence Estimate. According to Mann: "The underlying issue was whether the C.I.A. and other agencies were underestimating the threat from the Soviet Union, either by intentionally tailoring intelligence to support Kissinger's policy of détente or by simply failing to give enough weight to darker interpretations of Soviet intentions." In an attempt to counter these claims, the newly appointed Director of Central Intelligence, George H.W. Bush authorized the formation of a committee of anti-Communist experts, headed by Richard Pipes, to reassess the raw data. Richard Pipes picked Wolfowitz, to serve on this committee, which came to be known as Team B: "'Richard Perle recommended him,' Pipes says of Wolfowitz today [2003, as quoted by Tanenhaus]. 'I'd never heard of him.'"^[23]

The team's report, delivered in 1976 and quickly leaked to the press, stated that "All the evidence points to an undeviating Soviet commitment to what is euphemistically called the 'worldwide triumph of socialism,' but in fact connotes global Soviet hegemony," highlighting a number of key areas where they believed the government's intelligence analysts had got it wrong. According to Jack Davis, Wolfowitz observed later:

The B-Team demonstrated that it was possible to construct a sharply different view of Soviet motivation from the consensus view of the [intelligence] analysts and one that provided a much closer fit to the Soviets' observed behavior (and also provided a much better forecast of subsequent behavior up to and through the invasion of Afghanistan). The formal presentation of the competing views in a session out at [CIA headquarters in] Langley also made clear that the enormous experience and expertise of the B-Team as a group were formidable.^[24]

The work of Team B, the accuracy of its conclusions, and its effects on U.S. military policies remain controversial.

In 1977, during the administration of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Wolfowitz moved to The Pentagon. He was employed as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Programs for the U.S. Defense Department, under then U.S. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown.

In early 1980, Wolfowitz resigned from the Pentagon and went to work as a visiting professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. According to the Washington Post; "He said it was not he who changed his political philosophy so much as the Democratic Party, which abandoned the hard-headed internationalism of Harry Truman, Kennedy and Jackson."

In 1980, following the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the newly appointed U.S. National Security Advisor Richard V. Allen put together the administration's foreign policy advisory team. Allen initially rejected Wolfowitz’s appointment but following discussions, instigated by former colleague John Lehman, Allen offered Wolfowitz the position of Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department.

President Reagan’s foreign policy was heavily influenced by the Kirkpatrick Doctrine, as outlined in a 1979 article in Commentary by Jeanne Kirkpatrick entitled "Dictatorships and Double Standards".

Although most governments in the world are, as they always have been, autocracies of one kind or another, no idea hold greater sway in the mind of educated Americans than the belief that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances.... (But) decades, if not centuries, are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits.

Wolfowitz broke from this official line by denouncing Saddam Hussein of Iraq at a time when Donald Rumsfeld was offering the dictator support in his conflict with Iran. James Mann points out: "quite a few neo-conservatives, like Wolfowitz, believed strongly in democratic ideals; they had taken from the philosopher Leo Strauss the notion that there is a moral duty to oppose a leader who is a 'tyrant.'" Other areas where Wolfowitz disagreed with the administration was in his opposition to attempts to open up dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and to the sale of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft to Saudi Arabia. "In both instances," according to Mann, "Wolfowitz demonstrated himself to be one of the strongest supporters of Israel in the Reagan administration."

Mann stresses: "It was on China that Wolfowitz launched his boldest challenge to the established order." After Nixon and Kissinger had gone to China in the early 70s, U.S. policy was to make concessions to China as an essential Cold War ally. The Chinese were now pushing for the U.S. to end arms sales to Taiwan, and Wolfowitz used the Chinese incentive as an opportunity to undermine Kissinger's foreign policy toward China. Instead, Wolfowitz advocated a unilateralist policy, claiming that the U.S. did not need China’s assistance but that the Chinese needed the U.S. to protect them against the far-more-likely prospect of a Soviet invasion of the Chinese mainland. Wolfowitz soon came into conflict with U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who had been Kissinger’s assistant at the time of the visits to China. On March 30, 1982, The New York Times predicted that "Paul D. Wolfowitz, the director of policy planning ... will be replaced," because "Mr. Haig found Mr. Wolfowitz too theoretical." Instead, on June 25, 1982, George Schultz replaced Haig as U.S. Secretary of State, and Wolfowitz was promoted.

President of the World Bank

In March 2005, Wolfowitz was nominated to be president of the World Bank by U.S. President George W. Bush.^[48] Criticism of his nomination appeared in the media.^[49] Nobel Laureate in Economics and former chief economist for the World Bank Joseph Stiglitz said: "'The World Bank will once again become a hate figure. This could bring street protests and violence across the developing world.'"^[50] In a speech at the U.N. Economic and Social Council, economist Jeffrey Sachs also opposed Wolfowitz: "It's time for other candidates to come forward that have experience in development. This is a position on which hundreds of millions of people depend for their lives ... Let's have a proper leadership of professionalism."

In the U.S. there was some praise for the nomination. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal states: "Mr. Wolfowitz is willing to speak the truth to power ... he saw earlier than most, and spoke publicly about, the need for dictators to plan democratic transitions. It is the world's dictators who are the chief causes of world poverty. If anyone can stand up to the Robert Mugabes of the world, it must be the man who stood up to Saddam Hussein."^[52]

He was confirmed and became president on June 1, 2005. He soon attended the 31st G8 summit to discuss issues of global climate change and the economic development in Africa. When this meeting was interrupted by the July 7, 2005 London bombings, Wolfowitz was present with other world leaders at the press conference given by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Several of Wolfowitz's initial appointments at the Bank proved controversial, including two US nationals (Robin Cleveland and Kevin Kellems) formerly with the Bush administration, whom he appointed as close advisors with $250,000 tax-free contracts.^[53] Another appointee, Juan José Daboub was criticized by his colleagues and others for attempts to change policies on family planning and climate change towards a conservative line."^[54][55]

Wolfowitz gave special emphasis to two particular issues. Identifying Sub-Saharan Africa as the region most challenged to improve living standards, he traveled widely in the region. He also made clear his focus on fighting corruption. Several aspects of the latter program raised controversy. Overturning the names produced by a formal search process, he appointed a figure linked to the US Republican party to head the Bank's internal watchdog. Member countries worried that Wolfowitz's willingness to suspend lending to countries on grounds of corruption was vulnerable to selective application in line with US foreign policy interests. In a debate on the proposed Governance and Anti-Corruption Strategy at the Bank's 2006 Annual Meetings, shareholders directed Wolfowitz to undertake extensive consultations and revise the strategy to show how objective measures of corruption would be incorporated into decisions and how the shareholders' representatives on the Bank's Board would play a key role. Following the consultations and revisions, the Board approved a revised strategy in spring 2007.

Wolfowitz's leadership of the World Bank Group

Beginning early in 2007, Fox News published on its website a series of investigative stories on the World Bank, based in part on leaks to Fox of internal bank documents.^[71]

On April 11, 2007, Reuters and Al Kamen, in his column in The Washington Post, reported that Wolfowitz and the World Bank board had hired the Williams & Connolly law firm to oversee an investigation into the leaking of internal bank documents to Fox News.^[72][73] Those reports cite an internal memo to the bank staff later posted on the internet, dated April 9, 2007, in which the World Bank's general counsel, Ana Palacio, states that the Bank's legal staff was scrutinizing two articles by investigative reporter Richard Behar published on the website of Fox News on January 31 and March 27, 2007.^[74] A day after the second report published by Behar, on March 28, 2007, Kamen had disclosed that "Bank records obtained by the Government Accountability Project" documented pay raises in excess of Bank policies given to Shaha Riza^[75]

On April 12, 2007 the London Financial Times reported that, in a 2005 memorandum, Wolfowitz had personally directed the Bank's human resources chief to offer Riza a large pay rise and promotion, according to two anonymous sources who told the Financial Times that they had seen the memo.^[76] The memo was part of a package of 102 pages of documents publicly released by the bank on April 14, 2007.^[76]

On April 14, 2007, after reviewing the 102-page document package, the Financial Times concluded that it was "a potentially fatal blow" to Wolfowitz.^[76] In contrast, Fox News concluded that the new documents might offer Wolfowitz a "new lifeline" in the scandal, because the Bank's ethics committee had launched a review of the Riza compensation case in early 2006 and concluded that it did not warrant any further attention by the committee.^[77]

Media speculations about Wolfowitz quitting his position as president of the World Bank intensified on April 19, 2007 after his failure to attend a high-profile meeting.^[78] The controversy about Wolfowitz's girlfriend Shaha Riza led to disruption at the World Bank when some employees wore blue ribbons "in a display of defiance against his leadership."^[79]

World Bank Group's board of executive directors and staffers complained also that Wolfowitz was imposing Bush Administration policies to eliminate family planning from World Bank programs. According to Nicole Gaouette, in her report published in the Los Angeles Times on April 19, 2007, Juan José Daboub—the managing director whom Wolfowitz had appointed who has also been criticized for overly-conservative policies concerning climate change^[55] and "a Roman Catholic with ties to a conservative Salvadoran political party"—repeatedly deleted references to family planning from World Bank proposals.^[54]

On May 14, 2007 the World Bank committee investigating the alleged ethics violations reported (in part):

• "Mr. Wolfowitz's contract requiring that he adhere to the Code of Conduct for board officials and that he avoid any conflict of interest, real or apparent, were violated";
• "The salary increase Ms. Riza received at Mr. Wolfowitz's direction was in excess of the range established by Rule 6.01";
• "The ad hoc group concludes that in actuality, Mr Wolfowitz from the outset cast himself in opposition to the established rules of the institution"; and
• "He did not accept the bank's policy on conflict of interest, so he sought to negotiate for himself a resolution different from that which would have applied to the staff he was selected to head."^[80]

Wolfowitz appeared before the World Bank Group's board of executive directors to respond on Tuesday, May 15, 2007, and, the following day, on Wednesday, May 16, in another board meeting, its executive directors would "consider the report and make a statement later in the week." Adams speculates that "With Mr Wolfowitz so far refusing to step down, the board may need to take radical action to break the stalemate. Members have discussed a range of options, including sacking Mr Wolfowitz, issuing a vote of no confidence or reprimanding him. Some board members argue that a vote of no confidence would make it impossible for him to stay in the job."^[81] If the World Bank's board of directors "votes him out," according to Michael Hirsh, in the May 21, 2007 issue of Newsweek, he would be "the first president dismissed in [its] 62-year history ..."^[82] By mid-afternoon, Wednesday, May 16, 2007, The New York Times, reported that "after six weeks of fighting efforts to oust him as president ... Wolfowitz began today to negotiate the terms of his possible resignation, in return for the bank dropping or softening the charge that he had engaged in misconduct ..."^[83] After recent expressions from the Bush administration that it "fully" supported Wolfowitz as World Bank president and its urging a "fair hearing" for him, President Bush expressed "regret" at Wolfowitz's impending resignation.^[84]

On May 17, 2007, in a statement published on its website, the World Bank Group's board of Executive Directors announced that Paul Wolfowitz would resign as World Bank Group president at the end of June 2007; their statement is followed by a statement from Wolfowitz about his tenure as president and his hopes for the World Bank's future success.

Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (1943. december 22. – ), Jacob Wolfowitz matematikus fia, korábban G.W.Bush politikai tanácsadója és az Egyesült Államok védelmiminiszter-helyettese Donald Rumsfeld alatt. Wolfowitz volt a Világbank tizedik elnöke.

Apja Jacob Wolfowitz matematikus volt, aki 1920-ban követte az 1914-ben Lengyelország orosz részéről kivándorolt édesapját. Anyja Lillian Dundes. Számos rokonát a holokauszt során Lengyelországban megölték.

Leo Strauss és Albert Wohlstetter által befolyásolva Wolfowitz neokonzervatívnak számít, aki vehemensen Izrael támogatását, és – az amerikai érdekeltségek biztosítása érdekében – az erős katonai jelenlétet vallja.

Matematika és kémia tanulmányait 1965-ben a Cornell Egyetemen zárta le. A Chicago Egyetemen politikatudományokat tanult.

Wolfowitz folyamatosan váltott a politika és a tanítás területei között. Már 1966–1967-ben kormányzati alkalmazott volt. 1970 és 1973 között a Yale Egyetemen tanított, ebben az időben az amerikai szociáldemokratákhoz (SDUSA), akik az Amerikai Szocialista Párt (SPA) jobboldali szárnyából tevődtek össze, állt közel. 1973-tól négy éven keresztül a Fegyverzetellenőrző és Lefegyverzési Ügynökségnél szolgált, ahol a Szovjetunióval való tárgyalásokon vett részt, és a nukleáris fegyverek elterjedésének megakadályozása témán dolgozott. Disszertációja is erről szólt: Nukleáris fegyverek elterjedése a Közel-Keleten: a nukleáris vízsótalanítás (?) politikája és gazdasága^[forrás?]. A téziseiből kiderül, hogy Wolfowitz az atomfegyverek ellen egy izraeli kontrollt képzelt el, mivel az arab országok szintén az atommal való felfegyverkezésben látták a jövőjüket.

2005. március 31-én a Világbank Végrehajtótanácsa, amelyben 184 tagország 24 elnökkel van képviselve, egyhangúlag választotta Paul Wolfowitzot elnökké. Nem volt ellenjelölt. 2005 márciusában jelölte őt a posztra az amerikai elnök. Régóta köztudott volt G. W. Bush kívánsága, miszerint Wolfowitz kerülne a Világbank élére. James David Wolfensohnt követte a hivatalban, aki a tízéves hivatali idő lejárta után 2005. június 1-jén leköszönt posztjáról.

Hagyományosan az USA – mint legnagyobb résztulajdonos – jelöli a Világbank elnökét, miközben a Nemzetközi Valutaalap (IMF) üzletvezetői igazgatóját a szabályok szerint az európaiak nevezik meg.

Wolfowitz jelölése az USA-ban, viszont különösen Európában jelentős kételkedéseket váltott ki. Attól tartottak, hogy Wolfowitz a Világbankot az amerikai érdekek előtérbe helyezésével, a szegényebb országok kárára fogja kormányozni, továbbá Wolfowitz nem rendelkezett megfelelő tapasztalattal a nemzetközi fejlesztéspolitika terén sem. Wolfowitznak sikerült a kételyeket hamar szétoszlatni, amikor Brüsszelben európai fejlesztési politikusokkal ismertette programját – újdonság az intézmény történetében. Hangsúlyozta, hogy nem fog semmilyen konkrét forgatókönyv alapján dolgozni, hanem a Világbankot minden tag értelmében kívánja vezetni.

Wolfowitz elismerte, hogy „hibázott”^[1], amikor 2005-ben élettársának és egyben alkalmazottjának Shaha Ali Rizanak jelentős béremelést, illetve pozíció emelkedést biztosított. A Világbank Elnöksége utalásainak következtében Wolfowitz 2007. június 30-án hagyta el a hivatalt.