Oliver Stone

He has been married three times. His spouses were Najwa Sarkis, Elizabeth Burkit Cox and the present Sun-jung Jung. With Cox he had two sons, while Jung bore him a daughter.

In 1997, he came out with his autobiographical novel titled, ‘A Child's Night Dream’.

William Oliver Stone was born on September 15, 1946 to stockbroker, Louis Stone and Jacqueline Goddet in New York City. His parents divorced in 1962, an incident that deeply affected him.

He graduated from The Hill School located in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, in 1964. By the time he was seventeen, he began to work at the Paris mercantile exchange in sugar and cocoa.

He then enrolled at the Yale University, from where he dropped out after his first year to take up a teaching position at the Free Pacific Institute in South Vietnam. Serving the same for just about six months, he took up employment as a wiper with the United States Merchant Marine ship.

From September 1967 to November 1968, he served in the 25th Infantry Division of the United States Army. He was posted to combat duty in Vietnam. For his heroic efforts and bravery, he received numerous awards and medals.

In 1971, he graduated from film school at the New York University. It was during this time that he had made a short twelve minute film, ‘Last Year in Viet Nam’. The documentary was well received and widely appreciated.

In 1974, he made his directorial debut with the horror-thriller film, ‘Seizure’, for which he also co-wrote the screen play. With a run time of 98 minutes, the film depicts the story of a horror writer who virtually lives his nightmare.

In 1981, he wrote and directed his next psychological horror film, ‘The Hand’. Based on Marc Brandell’s novel titled, ‘The Lizard's Tail’, the movie starred Michael Caine and Andrea Marcovicci.

In 1986, he directed the Academy Award nominated war-drama film, ‘Salvador’, which was based on the Salvadoran Civil War. The film was critically acclaimed but remained commercially unsuccessful.

Next, he came up with his Academy Award winning film, ‘Platoon’. This was his first film of his series of films depicting Vietnam War. ‘Platoon’was very well received by the critics and audiences alike. Apart from directing, he wrote the screenplay for Al Pacino's drug lord tale ‘Scarface’ and ‘Year of the Dragon’ with Mickey Rourke

‘Platoon’ won the Directors Guild of America Award for ‘Outstanding Directing – Feature Film’. The film was also voted to be the ‘6th Greatest War Film ever made’ by Channel 4.

‘Born on the Fourth of July’ remained at the number one position at the box office for a continuous period of six weeks. The film was a grand success at the box office and earned whopping amount of $161,001,698.