Winona Ryder Hospitalized in UK with "Mystery Illness"

Winona Ryder, who apparently came down with an illness while flying into London’s Heathrow airport yesterday, was hospitalized briefly. Mara Buxbaum, the 37-year-old actress’s publicist, said that her client was taken to the hospital merely as a precaution and was released shortly after being check in. According to Buxbaum, "She’s fine now." Apparently that’s all that reporters could coax out of Buxbaum, who declined to give any more details about the flight or her client’s short-lived illness.

What we have gleaned, however, is that the British Airways flight that carried Ryder from Los Angeles to England requested a priority landing from the tower control center, reporting simply that a female passenger "required medical attention." A statement from the airline noted, "Our cabin crew looked after the female passenger as much as they could onboard and our passenger service staff also accompanied her to the local hospital. We wish her well."

Ryder, who began acting in major films while still just a teenager in 1986, has since been in a variety of critically acclaimed films, including "Little Women" and "The Age of Innocence," both of which drew an Oscar nomination nod for the actress. In 2002, Ryder was convicted for shoplifting from a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills, California, but has stayed out of trouble since then. There is no word on the nature of Ryder’s illness, though she there has been conjecture about a possible drug problem in the past. When she was arrested for shoplifting, she had prescription drugs in her possession, but all drug charges were dropped because of a valid prescription. Since then, a report has indicated that Ryder has had many prescriptions filled by a total of 20 doctors over the course of three years, an indication that some of the pills may be…unnecessary, for lack of a better word.