STONE, OLIVER

STONE, OLIVER (1946– ), U.S. film director. Born in New York, Stone spent two years in Vietnam (1967–68) as a U.S. Infantry Specialist 4th class and received both the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster honors. Stone began his feature film career at the highest level, writing the screenplay of Alan Parker's Midnight Express (1978), for which he received an Oscar. Stone then wrote the script for Scarface (1983) and then directed his first feature, Salvador (1986), which he also co-scripted and co-produced. Stone's next writing and directorial effort was the hugely successful Platoon (1986), which received the Academy Award for Best Picture of the year and an Oscar for Stone for Best Director. Stone then directed Wall Street (1987) and Talk Radio (1988), both of which he also co-scripted. His next film, Born on the Fourth of July (1989), won him his second Academy Award for Best Director. Stone then directed The Doors (1990); the highly controversial J.F.K. (Oscar nominations for Stone as writer, director, and producer, 1991); Heaven & Earth (1993); the even more controversial Natural Born Killers (1994); Nixon (Oscar nomination, 1995); U Turn (1997); Any Given Sunday (1999); Comandante (2003); Persona Non Grata (2003); the TV movie Looking for Fidel (2004); and Alexander (2004). In addition to writing the screenplays for many of his films that he directed, Stone also wrote the screenplay for Conan the Barbarian (1982); Year of the Dragon (1985); 8 Million Ways to Die (1986); and Evita (1996). Stone's published works include A Child's Night Dream (1997) and Oliver Stone's U.S.A. (2000). -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. Beaver, Oliver Stone: Wakeup Cinema (1994); J. Riordan, Stone: The Controversies, Excesses and Exploits of a Radical Filmmaker (1996); C. Salewicz, Oliver Stone: Close Up (1998); N. Kagan, The Cinema of Oliver Stone (2000); C. Silet (ed), Oliver Stone: Interviews (2001); E. Hamburg, JFK, Nixon, Oliver Stone and Me (2002). (Jonathan Licht / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)