Oliver Stone

American writer and director. A successful stockbroker and publisher of an investors newsletter, he attended a film school in New York where me hade two short films and began writing screenplays by 1973. The cinematic high priest of point of view films for the Baby Boomer generation, Stone is one of the most controversial filmmakers in Hollywood with many who object to his revisionist view of contemporary history. A five time Academy Award winner, Stone's films include "Midnight Express," 1978, "Salvador," 1986, "Platoon," 1986, "Born On The Fourth of July," 1989, "JFK," 1991 and "Nixon," 1995.

Stone won an Oscar for Best Screenplay in 1978 for "Midnight Express" and has written the noted screenplays for, "Conan the Barbarian" in 1982 and "Scarface" in 1983. He was nominated for eight Academy Awards and four Oscars for the war drama "Platoon" in 1986.

The only child of stockbroker Louis Stone and his socialite wife Jacqueline, Stone spent his privileged but emotionally lacking childhood in New York City. In 1960 he was sent to The Hill School in Pennsylvania where he "never fit in," and received the shocking news in his second year that his parents were divorcing and that his allegedly successful father was deeply in debt. Accepted to Yale in 1965, he dropped out after his freshman year to teach English as a civilian in Vietnam. Needing to experience the "bottom of life," Stone enlisted in the Army back in the US and was shipped back to Vietnam where he served 15 months in the 25th Infantry division where he was wounded in the neck, receiving the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for Service. After his discharge, Stone returned to the US in 1968 and enrolled in New York University's film program under the tutelage of filmmaker Martin Scorcese. Graduating in 1971, he made his directorial debut with the Canadian horror film "Seizure" in 1973.