Word: alden
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...sold some 400,000 copies and soared to the top of the best-seller lists. Yet if Novak went with a winner, so did Reagan. Novak, 41, came to the collaboration with credentials of his own. He is the golden mouthpiece of the nation's celebrities, a literary John Alden who can consistently woo -- and win -- the public in their behalf. In 1984 Iacocca, Novak's collaboration with auto executive Lee Iacocca, jolted the publishing world by selling 2.7 million copies. He followed that up with best sellers on Tip O'Neill and Sydney Biddle Barrows, the deb-styled Mayflower...
...sons. As for a return to the solo byline of William Novak, he says it's not soon likely. "I get far more ego gratification and attention from these books than I ever did from my own." But aren't the celebrity books his own too? No. This John Alden, unlike the original, shrinks from speaking for himself. "I don't fool myself into thinking that my books are best sellers," he says. "The celebrities are the selling point...
Moviemakers are among the loudest complainers. "Commercials cheapen the medium and put the audience in a bad mood before they see the film," says director Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams), expressing the overwhelming reaction among producers and directors. A majority of theater owners still agree, refusing to turn their screens into billboards. "Our experience with commercials was very negative," says Gregory Rutkowski, a vice president of AMC Entertainment, which owns 1,700 screens across the country. "We tested them several times, and our customers told us that they won't stand for them. You can't underestimate the intelligence...
...says Casey Silver, president of worldwide production for the MCA Motion Picture Group. "He can carry a gun or a woman in his arms. He can be tough or add a sweet comedic touch." The surprise is that an actor so versatile can be so focused. Ask Phil Alden Robinson, the writer-director of Field of Dreams. "You can't force him to do something that's false," says Robinson. "He marches to his own Walkman." Or maybe to his own Victrola. For Costner is both a harbinger of the postimperial American male and a throwback to heroes of Hollywood...
...hero of Damn Yankees was a pennant-winning natural named Shoeless Joe Hardy. The hero of Phil Alden Robinson's Field of Dreams is a farmer (Kevin Costner) who dreams of bringing Shoeless Joe Jackson back to earth for one more game. The great outfielder may have helped throw the 1919 World Series, but the farmer idolizes him and his Black Sox teammates for their innocence! So with the help of his trusting wife (Amy Madigan) and a crusty black author (James Earl Jones) who doesn't mind that all the old major-leaguers were white, he plows down...