He knows who killed JFK. He knows the truth about Vietnam. He probably even has a theory about who really started the war between Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. Oliver Stone likes burrow into historical events, and is doing so again with
1. Stone's mother took him to a nudist colony when he was nine years old. 2. Not to be outdone, Stone's father, a stockbroker, arranged for the 15-year-old to lose his virginity to a prostitute. Stone later dedicated 1987's Wall Street to his pop. 3. Orgies, drugs, nudists, and more prostitutes were common at the Stone household. He wrote about it in a 900-page novel, which he started at the age of nine. 4. In 1964, Stone attended Yale, where he was classmates with George W. Bush. He dropped out after flunking every class in his second semester. 5. Inspired by George Harrison's Indian sitar music and Joseph Conrad's novel "Lord Jim," he taught English as a second language in Vietnam. In his free time, he visited more prostitutes. 6. Novel attempt No. 2: foreshadowing his three-hour plus films, he wrote a novel called "A Child's Night Dream" about his time in Saigon, which clocked in at 1400 pages. When publishers didn't buy it, he chucked half of the manuscript into the East River. 7. Stone enlisted in the Army's 25th Infantry, winning a Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart with First Oak Leaf Cluster in Vietnam. He went by the name Private Bill Stone, because he thought "Oliver" was too girly. 8. 9. At 21, he was thrown into a Mexico prison for possession of pot -- his first drug bust. Stone has been arrested for drunk driving and drug possession twice since, in 1999 and 2005. 10. During the early 1970s, the struggling screenwriter kept himself afloat by driving a cab in New York City. 11. Turkey denounced the Stone-scripted 1978 movie Midnight Express, which portrayed brutal jailers and inspired the Airplane joke, "Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?" He later apologized to the Turkish people, explaining he had been misunderstood. 12. Stone also rankled many Chinese-Americans with his script for Year of the Dragon. The 1985 movie was picketed for its derogatory depiction of Chinatown. More forgiving was Quentin Tarantino, whose Kill Bill used a quote from the Razzie-nominated movie's restaurant shoot-out. 13. Stone wrote the cocaine-themed Scarface while trying to kick his cocaine habit, naming Tony Montana after Joe Montana, his favorite football player. The movie uses the word "f*ck" 218 times. 14. Oliver Stone originally wanted British rock singer Ian Astbury to play Jim Morrison in The Doors. Val Kilmer got the gig, but Astbury later toured with the band's two surviving members under the name The Doors of the 21st Century. 15. Stone tripped on 'shrooms with his cast and crew on the set of Natural Born Killers. 16. Eight copycat murders have been blamed on Stone's Natural Born Killers. One woman, who was shot by two teenagers who had watched the movie, sued both Stone and Time Warner. Despite its endorsement by John Grisham, the suit was thrown out of court in 2001. 17. Fidel Castro is a fan of the director. The two spent several days together for Stone's 2003 HBO documentary Comandante. HBO later decided the doc was too pro-Castro, and it was never broadcast. 18. Stone blamed the poor performance of Alexander, which portrayed the emperor as bisexual, to mainstream culture's rampant "homophobia." During a pique of anger over the subject, he threatened to move to France. 19. He dated Angelina Jolie - 28 years his junior - on the set of Alexander. According to the Enquirer, he wooed her by befriending her adopted son Maddox, who called him "Uncle Oliver." 20. Stone frequently appears in his own movies. He can be seen in a bunker in Platoon, on the phone in Wall Street, as a reporter in Born on the Fourth of July, as Jim Morrison's film professor in The Doors, and a sports commentator in Any Given Sunday. |
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