On History: Tariq Ali and Oliver Stone in Conversation

About Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone has directed: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (’10), W. (’08), World Trade Center (‘06), Alexander (’04), Any Given Sunday (’99), U-Turn (’97), Nixon (’95), Natural Born Killers (’94), Heaven and Earth (’93), JFK (’91), The Doors (’91), Born on the Fourth of July (’89), Talk Radio (’88), Wall Street (’87), Platoon (’86), Salvador (’86), The Hand (’81) and Seizure (’73). He’s written or cowritten all of the above, with the exception of U-Turn, World Trade Center, W., and Wall Street: MNS.

He’s also written or cowritten: Midnight Express (’78), Scarface (’83), Conan the Barbarian (’82), Year of the Dragon (’85), Evita (’96), and 8 Million Ways to Die (’86).

He’s directed five documentaries: Looking for Fidel (’04), Comandante (’03), Persona Non Grata (’03), South of the Border (’09), and The Untold History of the United States series for Showtime (’11).

He’s produced or coproduced: The People vs. Larry Flynt (’96), The Joy Luck Club (’93), Reversal of Fortune (’90), Savior (’98), Freeway (’96), South Central (’98), Zebrahead (’92), Blue Steel (’90), and the ABC mini-series Wild Palms (’93). An Emmy was given to him and his coproducer for the HBO film Indictment:The McMartin Trial, and he was nominated for the documentary The Last Days of Kennedy and King.

Stone has won Oscars for directing Born on the Fourth of July and Platoon, and for writing Midnight Express. He was nominated for director (JFK) and cowriter (Nixon). He’s also received three Golden Globes for directing (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and JFK) and one for writing (Midnight Express).

Stone wrote a novel, published in 1997 by St. Martin’s Press, entitled A Child’s Night Dream, based on Stone’s experiences as a young man. He is a contributor of some two hundred pages’ of essays on movies, culture, politics, and history to the book Oliver Stone’s USA, edited by Robert Brent Toplin and published by the University Press of Kansas (2000). Stone wrote the afterword for a book of scholarly essays analyzing his film Alexander called “Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History, and Cultural Studies” (2009).

Stone was born September 15, 1946, in New York, New York. Prior to his film career, Stone worked as a schoolteacher in Vietnam, a taxi driver, messenger, production assistant, and sales representative. He served in the US Army Infantry in Vietnam in 1967–68. He was wounded twice and decorated with the Bronze Star for Valor. After returning from Vietnam, he completed his undergraduate studies at New York University Film School in 1971.