Is Winona Ryder cool? She was both It Girl and outsider in the 1980s and ’90s as the doe-eyed, dark-haired star of cult classics in the making like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Heathers. Even a shoplifting scandal and multiyear hiatus from Hollywood in the early 2000s couldn’t dissuade her ardent fans; they sported “Free Winona” merch and bided their time, waiting for a comeback. A whole new legion of young fans came into the Winona fold in 2016 when Netflix rolled out Stranger Things, starring Ryder as frazzled but fierce mom Joyce Byers. So yes, Winona Ryder is cool. But you don’t have to tell Robert Rich that. He knows it better than most people in the Lehigh Valley.
You could say Rich is both a former and current Bethlehem resident. His in-between years were spent largely in New York City, where he befriended Ryder more than 20 years ago. Last year he authored Winona, a coffee table book crammed with photographs of the actress. Rich was the person behind the camera—or, later, smartphone—who snapped the majority of the pictures, which were carefully curated by Rich, Ryder and noted fashion photographer Francesca Sorrenti, who served as the book’s creative director. Rich appears in some of the pictures as well; although the book is all about Winona, it’s also a testament to the pair’s lengthy friendship.
Rich says he always knew he wanted to move to New York City. That’s not to say he doesn’t have fond memories of his childhood in Bethlehem. He grew up the youngest of two brothers and a sister. His father, also named Robert, was a physical education teacher and coach, and his mother, Eleanor, was an executive assistant for UPS. The former high school sweethearts celebrated 65 years of marriage last year. Rich attended Northeast Middle School and then Liberty High School. Along the way he made memories that will sound familiar to lots of Lehigh Valley kids: fishing in the Lehigh Canal, fixing up dirt bikes (“sissy bars and banana seats and all that,” he says), bagging groceries and pushing carts for an early job at Laneco in Nazareth and catching a flick at the neighborhood movie house (which, in his case, was the Boyd or the Nile, both formerly on West Broad Street). Rich can recall buying his first Hollywood magazine at a local drug store. “That’s when I started liking celebrities,” he says. “My room was covered in posters. I still have the posters.” Charlie’s Angels and Cheryl Tiegs were early favorites.
I went to a Marc Jacobs fashion show and I marched backstage and asked for a job.
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Rich moved to New York City in 1985 when he was 19 years old and studied art history and communications at Hunter College. He was still in college when he made what proved to be a fortuitous find underground: “I found a button on the subway and I put it on my jean jacket, and people were like, ‘Where’d you get that Keith Haring button?’ And I said, ‘Who’s Keith Haring?’” Just a couple years later, Rich was managing Haring’s Pop Shop in SoHo. From there he started to make his way in the fashion world, first at Barneys New York and then later at W Magazine, where he began meeting and working with a lot of celebrities, like Mariah Carey. Rich was self-assured in making his next career move. “I went to a Marc Jacobs fashion show and I marched backstage and asked for a job,” he says. It worked. He started in sales and was quickly promoted to assistant manager and then manager. He ultimately became Director of Retail Stores and Vice President of Public Relations.
His first year with Marc Jacobs was 1999. Later that same year he spotted Ryder in the Marc Jacobs store on Mercer Street in SoHo. Rich had just seen Girl, Interrupted. He recalls his first conversation with the actress: “I walked up to her and said, ‘I loved your new movie.’ She’s like, ‘That’s a girls’ movie.’ And I said, ‘I’m a girls’ movie kind of guy.’ That’s how it all started. The rest is history.”
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She's like 'That's a girls' movie' and I said 'I'm a girls' movie kind of guy.' That's how it all started. The rest is history.
A lot of that history would unfold underground, inside Rich’s windowless basement office on Mercer Street, which he inhabited for more than 17 years. Like the bedroom of his youth in Bethlehem, Rich decorated the space with pictures, posters and pages torn from magazines. But, unlike the celebrities whose likenesses graced his early “clubhouse,” Rich had formed real friendships with the A-listers who adorned his walls in adulthood. He describes his office as a retreat for actresses, models and other well-connected types who wanted a place to hang out away from the glaring eye of the paparazzi. “When it rained, it poured,” he says. “If someone was in town, everybody was in town. Grace Jones would come in, Kate Moss would come in, Keanu Reeves’ mom. They all came in at the same time and I’d introduce them all to each other and it always seemed to be fun, and everybody got along.” He can also recall the time he helped a hobbling Cate Blanchett (she was on crutches) get away from an overzealous group of photographers who were pursuing her.
Of course, Ryder was one of the most frequent visitors to Rich’s basement secret society. As their friendship deepened, he began to dress her for major events. But many of the pictures included in Winona are Polaroids that show her unguarded, clad in casual clothes, posing alone or with another guest in front of Rich’s busy office walls. Still, the two buddies—she calls him “shnookie” (although “not Jersey Shore Snooki—this was before that,” he’s quick to clarify) and he calls her “shnookums”—did get out into the daylight, too. Another picture in the book features Ryder feasting on pizza made by Rich’s mom inside his apartment. When asked to name one of his favorite memories of his time with Ryder, he cites the 2009 Met Gala, which they attended together. “Every guy was staring at Winona,” he says. “She was gorgeous. We just had so much fun.”
Rich left Marc Jacobs in 2015, but the pictures—the ones he could peel off the walls and save, anyway—came with him. He put them in shoeboxes and stashed them away. Then in 2022 he got an idea—why not whittle down the stack and turn this decades-long collaboration into a book? He DMed the London-based book dealer and publisher IDEA, which sells a line of Winona merchandise, and they told him they were on board. Of course, he also asked Ryder for her permission: “She thought it was an amazing idea and loved it.”
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Winona was released to much fanfare during a launch party at Dover Street Market in Manhattan at the tail end of last year; Marc Jacobs, who authored the book's foreword, was in attendance. By that time, Rich was back to being a Bethlehem resident. He fled the city and returned to the Lehigh Valley during the COVID pandemic for what he thought would be a temporary stay, but then he started going on long bike rides and walking his dogs around the area unencumbered. “So I started falling in love with Bethlehem again,” he says. In 2023 he assumed ownership and care of a historic home on Main Street that had been in his family for decades, first under the stewardship of his grandparents, and then his parents. Previously the home, which Rich says was built in 1885, was owned by Annie Kemerer, the founder of the Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts. As the year was drawing to a close, Rich was finishing up renovations inside—although nothing too drastic, he says. He wants to maintain the original character of the home. He is toying with the idea of turning the home into a bed and breakfast or Airbnb. “Once it’s done, I’ll figure it out,” he says.
Although he still visits New York City frequently (“It’s nice to jump back and forth”), Rich says he’s in the Lehigh Valley for the long haul. “I would have never thought I’d be back in Bethlehem, but I love it here,” he says. At the time of this interview, he had yet to woo Ryder to the region for a visit. But anything is possible. Her mysteriousness is part of her allure. “That’s why I love her,” he says.
Published as "At Home with Robert Rich" in the March 2024 edition of Lehigh Valley Style magazine.
