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The Ron Kovic autobiography of soldier-turned anti-war activist made for a movie smash

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11 Jan 2022
5 min read
Question: born on the fourth of the july was based on the life story of...

Based on the 1976 best-selling autobiography of paralyzed Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July is counted among the most powerful and memorable war films ever made.

Directed by Oliver Stone (also a Vietnam war vet) and starring Tom Cruise, the genre was familiar for the director, who won dual Oscars (“Best Picture” and “Best Director”) for Platoon just two years’ prior.

Detailing Kovic’s real-life story and metamorphosis of going from gung-ho, All-American Marine to wheelchaired veteran to anti-war activist, the picture proved a winner with audiences and critics alike.  All told, Born garnered eight Oscar noms, including “Best Picture,” “Best Director,” “Best Actor” for Cruise (his first of three career nominations) and “Best Screenplay” for Stone and Kovic; Stone would win in the directorial category, while Born captured a second Oscar for “Best Film Editing.”

Success at the box office ensued; made for just shy of $18 million, Born grossed over $160 million globally, making it the 10th highest-earning film of 1989 (Indian Jones and the Last Crusade held top honors, earning a monster $474 million and change).

For Cruise, Born presented opportunity to evidence growing on-screen chops and enhance his already-cemented stardom.  The film followed an all-star list of Cruise-led vehicles in the decade, including Risky Business (1983), Top Gun and The Color of Money (both in ’86) and “Best Picture” winner Rain Man (1988).  Continued stardom for Cruise would shine equally bright in the decade to follow, with A Few Good Men in 1992, Jerry Maguire in ’96 and Magnolia in ’99.

Kovic, who turned 75 in the summer of 2022, may not have won an Oscar, but he did capture the Golden Globe (with Stone) for “Best Screenplay.”  Still active in activism, in 2005, Kovic wrote a new introduction to his “Born on the Fourth of July,” which offered readers:

"I wanted people to understand. I wanted to share with them as nakedly and openly and intimately as possible what I had gone through, what I had endured. I wanted them to know what it really meant to be in a war, to be shot and wounded, to be fighting for my life on the intensive care ward, not the myth we had grown up believing. I wanted people to know about the hospitals and the enema room, about why I had become opposed to the war, why I had grown more and more committed to peace and nonviolence. I had been beaten by the police and arrested twelve times for protesting the war and I had spent many nights in jail in my wheelchair. I had been called a Communist and a traitor, simply for trying to tell the truth about what had happened in that war, but I refused to be intimidated."

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