Alex Winter

Alexander Ross Winter was born on July 17, 1965, and is an American-English actor and filmmaker. He played the slacker Bill in three films: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991) and Bill & Ted Face the Music (2000). He is best known for his role as Marko in the 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys, as well as co-writing, co- directing, and starring in the 1993 film Freaked.

In 1989, he co-starred in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. In 1991, he starred in The Idiot Box, which was canceled after six seasons. He has also appeared in The King and I, The Lost Boys and Rosalie Goes Shopping. He is currently working on a film based on his book, "The Power of Three" 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. The film was never widely released, despite positive reviews from The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly. It went on to become a cult favourite, through festivals, TV and DVD. Winter 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. Winter's 2012 VH1 rock doc Downloaded earned worldwide critical acclaim at theatrical and festival screenings. In 2013, he had a role in the thriller Grand Piano, starring Elijah Wood and John Cusack, playing The Assistant. Winter's multiple award-winning 2015 documentary Deep Web, had its world premiere at SXSW and a broadcast premiere in the U.S. on the Epix network. 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. Zappa will not only be the first documentary with access to his archives, but this project was the highest funded documentary in crowdfunding history, via Kickstarter. Winter said he began devoting a lot of his attention to the internet not just because he liked technology, but also because "I found this community there." Winter liked the idea of large numbers of anonymous users discussing a variety of topics in an anonymous space. Winter is also an outspoken advocate for technology and privacy rights. Winter's interest in technology, the Internet and privacy inspired him to make the 2012 documentary film Downloaded. He criticized media companies and news outlets for exaggerating how many people used Napster for digital piracy. "Napster was a huge threat to the power structure," Winter said.

Winter was married to Sonya Dawson, with whom he had a son, born in 1998. The couple later divorced. In 2010, he married Ramsey Ann Naito, who he married in 2011. He is survived by his wife and two daughters. He has a son with Dawson and a daughter with Naito. On February 2, 2018, Winter revealed that he was molested by an older man at age 13 while he was acting on Broadway. Winter refused to name his abuser, but revealed he is coping with PTSD since the incident, saying; "I had extreme PTSD for many, many years"

Winter was born in London, England. His mother, Margaret "Gregg" Mayer, is a New York-born American and former Martha Graham dancer. His father, Ross Albert Winter, is an Australian who danced with Winter's mother's troupe in the 1960s. When Winter was five, his family moved to Missouri, where his father ran the Mid-American Dance Company. Winter received training in dance as a child. He has an older brother named Stephen. His father has English ancestry and his mother is Jewish, of Ukrainian-Jewish descent. In 1978, Winter moved to the New York City area, where he and his mother lived in Montclair, New Jersey. During this time Winter began performing as an actor on and off Broadway, commuting into New York. The two divorced in 1973 and he moved back to St. Louis. In 1983, after graduating from Montclair High School, Winter was accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. While at NYU, he met fellow aspiring filmmaker Tom Stern. The two collaborated on a number of 16mm short films and both graduated with honours.