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US 1989
Class of 89 Stephen Silverman. July 1989 In 1939, Hollywood's golden movie year, the parade of matinee idols was constant and classy. James Stewart's Mr. Smith went to Washington. Clark Gable's Rhett Butler gave a damn about Scarlett O'Hara (regardless of what he claimed). GungaDin's Cary Grant rode rough over India. Beau Geste's Gary Cooper marched with the Foreign Legion. And Errol Flynn brawled in the barroom of Dodge City. Now here it is, 50 years later, the last summer of the last year of the decade. And what do the movies have to offer? Milder and gentler heroes than the rough-hewn rogues we have encountered lately. This years star "model is a welcome throwback to the classic age of the movies, when stars were defined by type, and studios preferred personalities as clear and consistent as of Grant and Flynn. A toast then, to the new breed of classy, old fashioned stars. Dennis Quaid, Tom Hanks, Kevin Costner, Timothy Dalton, Mark Harmon, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford and the two, Michaels (J. Fox. and Keaton). They are the well turned-out, fellows we'll be seeing on screens this summer, making up the Class of '89. Now that class is in session, how does one properly define the guy with the right stuff? He has, smarts. "Witty and urbane" is how producer Art Linson describes Michael J. Fox, 28. Linson's Vietnam drama Casualties of War, directed by Brian De Palma (The Untouchables), stars the quick witted Fox as a soldier forced by his conscience to testify against four men in his unit for raping a Vietnamese woman. One of the defendants, the unit commander, is played by Sean Penn, who, unfortunately, does not qualify as a classmate - which takes nothing away from his acting ability (in other words, Penn gets the “Miss Congeniality” award). "Michael's got a lot of charm," continues Linson, "He's young and lighthearted." Class personified. Thirty-three-year-old Mel Gibson, according to his Lethal Weapon 2 cohort, Danny Glover, is "generous and very down-to-earth." (Sequels, you should know, in no way diminish class, ever since Al Pacino gripped us in The Godfather, Part II.) "He takes what he does seriously," continues Glover. "He doesn't let all the stuff going on around him deter him from what he's really about." Kevin Costner, star of the already established hit Field of Dreams, is also a regular guy, according to Dreams director Phil Alden Robinson: "He's the most capable of playing an Everyman without being boring." Costner, 34, seconds that low-key assessment. "l am not looking for the kind of role that establishes me as a lead," he says. "I'm not looking to affirm that I am a lead by saying, “Look at me; I'm carrying a movie!" I like just being inside a movie."
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