Oliver Stone

Born: 15th September 1946
Where: New York, USA

The double-Oscar winning Vietnam vet and former taxi driver is known for uncompromising political movies such as Nixon and JFK.

As a writer and director he has concerned himself with subjects such as the Vietnam war, the Kennedy Assassination and US involvement in El Salvador.

However, he has also branched out into historical epic (Alexander), action thriller (Natural Born Killers) and music biopic (The Doors).

The son of a New York stockbroker (he is thought to have based the film Wall Street on him) and a French mother, Stone was largely raised by a nanny.

He allegedly lost his virginity to a prostitute in his mid-teens at the behest of his father.

In 1964 he entered Yale University but dropped out to teach English at a Catholic school in Saigon.

Quitting teaching, he worked on board a ship and then signed up with the Merchant Marine and travelled to Mexico where he wrote the novel A Child’s Night Dream.

In 1967 he enlisted with the 25th Infanty for the Vietnam War as Private Bill Stone (he felt Oliver was too effeminate).

Wounded twice, he received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star before returning to America and immersing himself in the counter-culture movement.

He enrolled in New York University’s Film School and completed the film Dominique: The Loves of a Woman inspired by his mother and the Italian director Fellini.

Tutors included Martin Scorsese and he went on to make three black and white shorts before taking a job as a taxi driver while he worked on scripts.

After filming Seizure in Canada (after it was bankrolled by a rich Canadian), Stone moved to LA and continued writing.

In 1976 he started work on the script which would become Platoon - but it was rejected by all the major studios.

However, impressed with the writing, Columbia Pictures employed him to write the screenplay for Alan Parker's Turkish prison drama Midnight Express.

Stone won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay and his success helped him clinch his major directorial debut - horror thriller The Hand.

After it flopped, Stone fell back on screenwriting, including scripts for Conan The Barbarian, Scarface (Stone claimed he kicked his cocaine addiction while working on the movie in France) and The Year of the Dragon.

In 1984, Stone met reporter Richard Boyle and together they put together the movie Salvador, with an Oscar nominated James Woods taking a role initially offered to Martin Sheen.

Two years later Stone's pet Vietnam War project Platoon became a reality, scooping four Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture.

In 1987, Michael Douglas landed a best actor Oscar for Wall Street and Stone went on to adapt Eric Bogosian's play Talk Radio for the big screen.

Tom Cruise portrayed disabled Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in Stone's hardhitting Born on the Fourth of July, a movie which landed Stone his second best director Oscar.

The Doors, starring Val Kilmer as singer-songwriter Jim Morrison, told the story of the legendary 1960s band.

Back in the political arena, the three-hour JFK starred Kevin Costner as the district attorney who investigated the Kennedy assassination.

The movie boasted 200 speaking parts and a varied cast of professionals, including Jack Lemmon, Donald Sutherland, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci, Sissy Spacek and Sally Kirkland.

The last film of his Vietnam War trilogy - Heaven and Earth - was released to a lukewarm response compared to former glories.

Natural Born Killers - scripted by Quentin Tarantino - caused controversy with its brutal depiction of two serial killers caught in the media spotlight.

In 1995, Stone returned to politics with the biopic Nixon, starring Anthony Hopkins as the corrupt American president.

Switching to sport, Any Given Sunday starred Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz and Dennis Quaid in a movie about the goings-on in the world of professional football.

The same year - 1999 - he was also arrested for drunken driving and possession of hashish.

His old friend Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, was the subject of the 2003 documentary Commandante.

However, Stone's greatest misjudgement appears to be his 2004 biopic of Alexander, starring Colin Farrell in the three-hour epic.