Photo by Venturelli/WireImage. Courtesy of Adrienne Papp.

Oliver Stone is a household name. A master of controversial subjects in award winning movies, a legendary provocateur, a brilliant film-maker, director, writer and producer.  Somewhat of a rebel, an influential visionary and a prominent portrayer of uncensored contemporary political and cultural issues, he does not beat around the bush about any issue.  Why would he? He had his own battle fields to win not only as a war veteran who was awarded a Bronze Star for Gallantry and a Purple Heart, but also as a creative genius in Hollywood with a long list of films behind him, winning one Oscar after another.

His first win was for Midnight Express in 1978, but that was just the beginning of his expanding career and fame as a filmmaker.

In 1986 he directed the political film Salvador, starring Oscar-nominated James Woods. But his big hit was the Vietnam war film Platoon, also in 1986, starring Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger, and Francesco Quinn. Stone then followed up with the critically acclaimed Wall Street in 1987. The movie, starring Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas, focused on the business world of tycoons and stock brokers. The film won an Oscar for Douglas’ portrayal of the villainous Gordon Gekko.

Stone then directed Tom Cruise in an Oscar-nominated role in Born on the Fourth of July for which Oliver Stone won an Academy Award for Directing, which was his third win to date. Later he took a hand in producing several movies, including the Academy Award-winning film Reversal of Fortune, which movie played a crucial role in my own life as well when I contacted Alan Dershowitz, a respected Professor of Law at Harvard University who represented Claus von Bülow (played by Jeremy Irons) on whose actual case the movie was based.

Oliver Stone then returned to the director’s chair in 1991, once again with two giant films in one year: Val Kilmer starring as the legendary Jim Morrison in Stone’s psychedelic film The Doors. The Doors was overshadowed by Stone’s colossal film JFK, which Stone himself considers the best of his films. In the film, Jim Garrison tackles the conspiracy behind the murder of America’s president John F. Kennedy. The large cast featured such well-known names as Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, John Candy, Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland, and Walter Matthau.

Stone’s energy and commitment to his craft is extraordinary without a doubt. Besides the obvious wonder if the man ever sleeps, his list of movies whether as a producer, writer, or director seems endless. Or at least, endlessly successful continuing onto such films as Nixon and Natural Born Killers, both of which he directed. He then moved onto films such as The People vs. Larry Flynt, Any Given Sunday, The Day Reagan Was Shot, and the epic, Alexander, all of which he produced, in addition to South of the Border, a documentary about Hugo Chavez that Stone also directed.

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