Word: kovic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...film spans two decades, beginning on July 4, 1956. Ron Kovic's tenth birthday is the U.S.'s 180th, and his hometown of Massapequa, N.Y., is parading its patriotism down Main Street. Disabled veterans are wheeled out, including one (played by the real Kovic, co-author of the film's screenplay) who flinches at the sound of a firecracker. It must remind him of a war that demands elegies. But young Ron -- too busy watching skyrockets that night to pay attention to a first kiss from his precocious friend Donna -- sees organized gunplay as the short road to manly glory...
...Mexican scenes, where Ron meets a prostitute who treats him gently, Cruise's tearful face expresses wonderfully conflicting feelings of joy and fear, peace and release. He makes sense of the story even when the movie doesn't. No wonder that at the end of the filming, Kovic gave | Cruise his Bronze Star. "He gave it to Tom for bravery," Stone says, "for having gone through this experience in hell as much as any person can without actually having been there." The presentation was made for the actor's 27th birthday...
...Born on the Fourth of July, Cruise had no Hoffman to play actor's Ping- Pong with. In front of the camera, he was on his own. Behind it, he would be led by two Viet Nam vets, Stone and Kovic. "I chose Tom," Stone says, % "because he was the closest to Ron Kovic in spirit. I sensed that they came from the same working-class Catholic background and had a similarly troubled family history. They certainly had the same drive, the same hunger to achieve, to be the best, to prove something. Like Ron too, Tom is wound real...
Cruise was willing to do anything for the picture; he tabled his usual multimillion-dollar salary, and will earn no money until the box office sends some back. He spent hours with Kovic, peppering the vet with questions, soaking up the man's life. In matching wheelchairs, the two men would go shopping; Cruise was rarely recognized. In a Westwood, Calif., electronics store, he was asked to leave because his wheels were leaving marks on the rubber carpet. "He was furious," recalls Kovic. "Everyone in the store turned and looked at him when he shouted, 'I have as much right...
...held his own against Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Cruise is Hollywood's biggest attraction, and he is about to be acclaimed one of its best actors. In Born on the Fourth of July, he displays rage and range as Viet Nam veteran Ron Kovic. For the engaging, intense young star, life has never been sweeter...