home/movie/1987/dear america letters home from vietnam
Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam
Not Rated
DocumentaryWar
7.1/10(25 ratings)
Real-life letters written by American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines during the Vietnam War to their families and friends back home. Archive footage of the war and news coverage thereof augment the first-person "narrative" by men and women who were in the war, some of whom did not survive it.
10-01-1987
1h 24m
THIS
HELLA
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Bill Couturié
Writer:
Richard Dewhurst
Production:
Dear America, GBA
Key Crew
Still Photographer:
John Armstrong
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn (born Edna Rae Gillooly; December 7, 1932) is an American actress. Known for her portrayal of complicated women in dramas, Burstyn was the recipient of various accolades, and was among the few performers to have won an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony (Triple Crown of Acting).
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Burstyn left school and worked as a dancer and model. She made her stage debut on Broadway in 1957 and soon started to make appearances in television shows. Stardom followed several years later with her acclaimed role in The Last Picture Show (1971), which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her next appearance in The Exorcist (1973), earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film has remained popular and several publications have regarded it as one of the greatest horror films of all time. She followed this with Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
She appeared in numerous television films and gained further recognition from her performances in Same Time, Next Year (1978), which won her a Golden Globe Award, and Resurrection (1980), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), and Requiem For a Dream (2000). For playing a lonely drug-addicted woman in the last one of these, she was again nominated for an Academy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In the 2010s, she made appearances in television series including the political dramas, Political Animals and House of Cards, which have earned her Emmy Award nominations. From 2000 till her death, she had been co-president of the Actors Studio, a drama school in New York City. In 2013, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame for her work on stage.
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Tom Berenger is an American television and motion picture actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes in Platoon. He is also known for playing Jake Taylor in the Major League films and Thomas Beckett in the Sniper films.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
J. Kenneth Campbell's acting career has taken him from Broadway to feature films and television. His many films include Bulworth, Ulee's Gold, Guess Who?, Mars Attacks and The Abyss. He recently completed filming director Kevin Willmott's upcoming feature The Only Good Indian, in which Campbell plays a lead role, alongside Wes Studi (Avatar, Last of the Mohicans). On television, Campbell has appeared in Commander in Chief, Frasier, Charmed, Melrose Place, Ally McBeal, Picket Fences, Matlock, L.A. Law and many other series. Campbell was born in Flushing, New York, in 1947 the second of seven children. He was raised on Long Island and graduated from Cheshire Academy in Connecticut. It was at The University of Arizona where he discovered his calling. Forsaking the "security" of a college degree, he entered "The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater" to study acting with Sanford Miesner. Non-academic acting students in 1967 became automatically eligible for the Selective Service and in the middle of his second year at the Playhouse, Campbell was drafted into the U.S. Army. He retaliated, by joining the Marines. He was wounded in action, and after months of recuperation, he returned to The Playhouse and finished the program. Campbell has worked, on stage, in film and on television ever since.
Richard John Chaves is an American character actor. In the early 1980s, he began work as an actor taking on various soap opera roles until he gained a role in 1987 as Poncho in the science fiction film Predator. Soon afterward, his career received another boost with the role of Lt. Colonel Ironhorse in the television series War of the Worlds. Chaves once calculated that the volume of fan mail he received outnumbered the rest of the cast members by a four or five to one ratio.
William James "Willem" Dafoe (/dəˈfoʊ/də-FOH or /ˈdeɪfoʊ/ DAY-foh; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. Known for his prolific career portraying diverse roles in both mainstream and arthouse films, he is the recipient of various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor as well as nominations for four Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, four Golden Globe Awards, four Critics' Choice Movie Awards, and five Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has frequently collaborated with filmmakers Paul Schrader, Abel Ferrara, Lars von Trier, Julian Schnabel, Wes Anderson, and Robert Eggers. Dafoe was a founding member of experimental theatre company The Wooster Group.
He made his film debut with an uncredited role in Heaven's Gate (1980). Dafoe's early career includes credits for The Loveless (1982), Streets of Fire (1984), and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). He earned his first Academy Award nomination for the war drama Platoon (1986), followed by nominations for his roles in Shadow of the Vampire (2000), The Florida Project (2017), and the Vincent van Gogh biopic At Eternity's Gate (2018). He also gained acclaim and wide recognition for his roles as Jesus Christ in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and as the supervillain Norman Osborn in the superhero film Spider-Man (2002), a role he reprised in its sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), and the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).
His other film appearance include roles in Mississippi Burning (1988), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Wild at Heart (1990), Light Sleeper (1992), Body of Evidence (1993), Clear and Present Danger (1994), The English Patient (1996), Affliction (1997), New Rose Hotel(1998), Existenz (1999), The Boondock Saints (1999), American Psycho (2000), Auto Focus (2002), Finding Nemo (2003), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Inside Man (2006), Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007), Antichrist (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Nymphomaniac (2013), The Fault in Our Stars (2014), John Wick (2014), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Aquaman (2018), The Lighthouse (2019), Nightmare Alley (2021), Poor Things (2023), and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024).
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Robert Anthony De Niro (born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. In 2009, De Niro received the Kennedy Center Honor, and earned a Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama in 2016.
De Niro studied acting at HB Studio, Stella Adler Conservatory, and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. His first collaboration with Scorsese was with the 1973 film Mean Streets. De Niro earned two Academy Awards, one for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II (1974) and the other for Best Actor portraying Jake LaMotta in Scorsese's drama Raging Bull (1980). His other Oscar-nominated roles were for Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978), Awakenings (1990), Cape Fear (1991), and Silver Linings Playbook (2012).
Other notable roles include in 1900 (1976), The King of Comedy (1982), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Brazil (1985), The Mission (1986), Goodfellas (1990), This Boy's Life (1993), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), Heat (1995), Casino (1995), Jackie Brown (1997), The Good Shepherd (2006), Joker (2019), and The Irishman (2019). He made his directorial film debut with A Bronx Tale (1993). His comedic roles include Midnight Run (1988), Wag the Dog (1997), Analyze This (1999), the Meet the Parents films (2000-2010), and The Intern (2015).
Also known for his television roles, De Niro portrayed Bernie Madoff in the HBO film The Wizard of Lies (2017), earning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie nomination. He received further Emmy Award nominations for producing the Netflix limited series When They See Us (2019), and for portraying Robert Mueller on Saturday Night Live.[1]
De Niro and producer Jane Rosenthal founded the film and television production company TriBeCa Productions in 1989, which has produced several films alongside his own. Also with Rosenthal, he founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002. Six of De Niro's films have been inducted into the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Kevin Brady Dillon (born August 19, 1965) is an American actor best known as Johnny "Drama" Chase on the HBO dramedy Entourage. He has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for his performance on the show.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Kevin Dillon, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Matthew Raymond "Matt" Dillon (born February 18, 1964) is an American actor and film director. He began acting in the late 1970s, gaining fame as a teenage idol during the 1980s.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Matt Dillon, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965) is an American actor. His films as a leading actor have grossed over $14 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. Downey's career has been characterized by some early success, a period of drug-related problems and run-ins with the law, and a surge in popular and commercial success in the 2000s. In 2008, Downey was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. From 2013 to 2015, he was listed by Forbes as Hollywood's highest-paid actor.
At the age of five, Downey made his acting debut in his father Robert Downey Sr.'s film Pound in 1970. He subsequently worked with the Brat Pack in the teen films Weird Science (1985) and Less than Zero (1987). Downey's portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in the 1992 biopic Chaplin received a BAFTA Award. Following a stint at the Corcoran Substance Abuse Treatment Facility on drug charges, he joined the TV series Ally McBeal in 2000, and won a Golden Globe Award for the role. Downey was fired from the show in 2001 in the wake of additional drug charges. He stayed in a court-ordered drug treatment program and has maintained his sobriety since 2003.
Downey made his acting comeback in the 2003 film The Singing Detective, after Mel Gibson paid his insurance bond because completion bond companies would not insure himю He went on to star in the black comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), the thriller Zodiac (2007), and the action comedy Tropic Thunder (2008). Downey gained global recognition for starring as Iron Man in ten films within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Iron Man (2008), and leading up to Avengers: Endgame (2019). He has also played Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes (2009), which earned him his second Golden Globe, and its sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). Downey has also taken on dramatic parts in The Judge (2014) and Oppenheimer (2023), winning an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA Award for his portrayal of Lewis Strauss in the latter.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Downey Jr., licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Michael Andrew Fox OC (born June 9, 1961), known professionally as Michael J. Fox, is a retired Canadian-American actor. Beginning his career in the 1970s, he rose to prominence portraying Alex P. Keaton on the NBC sitcom Family Ties (1982–1989). Fox is famous for his role as protagonist Marty McFly in the Back to the Future film trilogy (1985–1990), a critical and commercial success. He went on to headline several films throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including Teen Wolf (1985), The Secret of My Success (1987), Casualties of War (1989), Doc Hollywood (1991), and The Frighteners (1996). Fox returned to television on the ABC sitcom Spin City in the lead role of Mike Flaherty from 1996 to 2000.
In 1998, Fox disclosed his 1991 diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. He subsequently became an advocate for finding a cure and founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000 to help fund research. Worsening symptoms forced Fox to reduce his activities and led to his return to television in Spin City when he was still a major movie star. He continued to make guest appearances on television, including recurring roles on the FX comedy-drama Rescue Me (2009) and the CBS legal drama The Good Wife (2010–2016) that garnered him critical acclaim. He voiced the lead roles in the Stuart Little films (1999–2005) and the animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001). His final major role was on the NBC sitcom The Michael J. Fox Show (2013–2014). Fox retired in 2020 due to his declining health.
Fox won five Primetime Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Grammy Award. He was also appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2010, along with being inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame in 2000 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2002. For his advocacy of a cure for Parkinson's disease, he received an honorary doctorate in 2010 from the Karolinska Institute and an honorary Oscar in 2022.
Thomas Mark Harmon (born September 2, 1951) is an American actor, producer and director. He is known for playing the lead role of Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS (2003-2021), a role which has earned him six nominations at the People's Choice Awards including a win for Favorite TV Crime Drama Actor in 2017. Since 2008, he has also been a producer and executive producer of the show as well as its' spinoff series NCIS: New Orleans. His character of NCIS special agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs was introduced in a guest starring role in two episodes of JAG, and continued on the spinoff show NCIS.
He had a recurring role as Secret Service special agent Simon Donovan in a four-episode story arc in The West Wing in 2002, for which he received an Emmy Award nomination.
One of his first national TV appearances (other than as an athlete) was in a commercial for Kellogg's Product 19 cereal with his father, Tom Harmon, its longstanding TV spokesman. Thanks to his sister Kristin's in-laws, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, he landed his first job as an actor in an episode of Ozzie's Girls.
He has been starring in television and film since the mid-1970s, after a career as a collegiate football player with the UCLA Bruins.
He's been married to actress Pam Dawber since 1987 and they have 2 sons. His son, actor Sean Harmon, had a recurring role as a young Leeroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS.
John Heard Jr. (March 7, 1946 – July 21, 2017) was an American actor. Heard made his debut appearance in film with the ensemble Between the Lines (1977). He appeared in a number of successful films, including Heart Beat (1980), Cutter's Way (1981), Cat People (1982), Beaches (1988), and Deceived (1991). He was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1999 for guest-starring as Vin Makazian on The Sopranos (1999–2004).
Judd Asher Nelson (born November 28, 1959) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as John Bender in The Breakfast Club, Alec Newbury in St. Elmo's Fire, Joe Hunt in Billionaire Boys Club, Nick Peretti in New Jack City, Billy Beretti in Empire, and Jack Richmond in the television series Suddenly Susan.
Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez (born August 3, 1940), known professionally as Martin Sheen, is an American actor. He first became known for his roles in the films The Subject Was Roses (1968) and Badlands (1973), and later achieved wide recognition for his leading role as Captain Benjamin Willard in Apocalypse Now (1979), as U.S. President Josiah Bartlet in the television series The West Wing (1999–2006), and as Robert Hanson in the Netflix television series Grace and Frankie (2015–2022).
In film, Sheen has won the Best Actor award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival for his performance as Kit Carruthers in Badlands. Sheen's portrayal of Capt. Willard in Apocalypse Now earned a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor.
Sheen has worked with a wide variety of film directors, including Richard Attenborough, Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, David Cronenberg, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Oliver Stone. Sheen received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1989. In television, Sheen has won a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild awards for playing the role of President Josiah Bartlet in The West Wing, and an Emmy for guest starring in the sitcom Murphy Brown. In 2012, he portrayed Uncle Ben in The Amazing Spider-Man directed by Marc Webb.
Born and raised in the United States by a Spanish father and an Irish mother, he adopted the stage name Martin Sheen to help him gain acting parts. He is the father of four children, all of whom are actors.
Sheen has directed one film, Cadence (1990), in which he appears alongside his sons Charlie and Ramón. He has narrated, produced, and directed documentary television, earning two Daytime Emmy awards in the 1980s, and has been active in liberal politics.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Martin Sheen, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors can be found on Wikipedia.
Eric Roberts (born April 18, 1956) is an American actor. His career began with a well-received performance in King of the Gypsies (1978), for which he earned his first Golden Globe Award nomination. His second Golden Globe nomination came for his portrayal of Paul Snider in Star 80 (1983), followed by Globe and Academy Award nominations for his supporting role in Runaway Train (1985). In a career spanning almost forty years, Roberts has performed in over 200 films, including Raggedy Man (1981), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), The Specialist (1994), Cecil B. Demented (2000), National Security (2003), The Dark Knight (2008), The Expendables (2010) and Inherent Vice (2014). His equally varied television work includes three seasons with the sitcom Less than Perfect, as well as recurring roles on the NBC drama Heroes and the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless. His sisters Julia Roberts and Lisa Roberts Gillan, and daughter Emma Roberts, also have acting careers.
Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama Mystic River (2003) and the biopic Milk (2008).
Penn began his acting career in television, with a brief appearance in episode 112 of Little House on the Prairie on December 4, 1974, directed by his father Leo Penn. Following his film debut in the drama Taps (1981), and a diverse range of film roles in the 1980s, including Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Bad Boys (1983), Penn garnered critical attention for his roles in the crime dramas At Close Range (1986), State of Grace (1990), and Carlito's Way (1993). He became known as a prominent leading actor with the drama Dead Man Walking (1995), for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination and the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin Film Festival. Penn received another two Oscar nominations for Woody Allen's comedy-drama Sweet and Lowdown (1999) and the drama I Am Sam (2001), before winning his first Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 for Mystic River and a second one in 2008 for Milk. He has also won a Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for the Nick Cassavetes-directed She's So Lovely (1997), and two Volpi Cups for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for the indie film Hurlyburly (1998) and the drama 21 Grams (2003).
Penn made his feature film directorial debut with The Indian Runner (1991), followed by the drama film The Crossing Guard (1995) and the mystery film The Pledge (2001); all three were critically well received. Penn directed one of the 11 segments of 11'09"01 September 11 (2002), a compilation film made in response to the September 11 attacks. His fourth feature film, the biographical drama survival movie Into the Wild (2007), garnered critical acclaim and two Academy Award nominations.
In addition to his film work, Penn has engaged in political and social activism, including his criticism of the George W. Bush administration, his contact with the Presidents of Cuba and Venezuela, and his humanitarian work in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Mary Kathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, and two Tony Awards.
Turner became widely known during the 1980s, with roles in Body Heat (1981), The Man with Two Brains (1983), Crimes of Passion (1984), Romancing the Stone (1984), and Prizzi's Honor (1985), the latter two earning her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In the later 1980s and early 1990s, Turner had roles in The Accidental Tourist (1988), The War of the Roses (1989), and Serial Mom (1994).
She later had roles in The Virgin Suicides (1999), Baby Geniuses (1999), Beautiful (2000), and Marley & Me (2008). On TV she guest-starred on the NBC sitcom Friends as Chandler Bing's drag queen father Charles Bing, in the third season of Showtime's Californication as Sue Collini, the jaded, sex-crazed owner of a talent agency, and on the Netflix dramedy series The Kominsky Method as Michael Douglas's character's ex-wife Roz Volander. Turner's voice roles include Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Monster House (2006), and voicing characters on the television series The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of the Hill, and Rick and Morty.
In addition to film, Turner has worked in the theater, and has been nominated for the Tony Award twice for her Broadway roles as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Turner has also taught acting classes at New York University.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Kathleen Turner, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike, he is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time. He received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.
Williams began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles during the mid-1970s, and released several comedy albums including Reality ... What a Concept in 1980. He rose to fame playing the alien Mork in the ABC sitcom Mork & Mindy (1978–1982). He received his first leading film role in Popeye (1980). Williams went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting (1997). His other Oscar-nominated roles were for Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Fisher King (1991).
Williams starred in the critically acclaimed dramas The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990), Patch Adams (1998), Insomnia (2002), One Hour Photo (2002), and World's Greatest Dad (2009). He also starred in family films such as Hook (1991), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Jack (1996), Flubber (1997), RV (2006), and the Night at the Museum trilogy (2006–2014). He lent his voice to the animated films Aladdin (1992), Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006), and its 2011 sequel.
Williams was found dead at his home in Paradise Cay, California, in August 2014, at the age of 63. At the time of his suicide, he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. According to his widow, Williams had experienced depression, anxiety, and increasing paranoia. His autopsy found "diffuse Lewy body disease" and Lewy body dementia professionals said his symptoms were consistent with dementia with Lewy bodies.
Harvey Keitel (born May 13, 1939) is an American actor known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous and "tough guy" characters. He rose to prominence during the New Hollywood movement, and has held a long-running association with director Martin Scorsese, starring in six of his films: Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), Mean Streets (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and The Irishman (2019).
Keitel received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of Mickey Cohen in Bugsy (1991). He won the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Piano (1993). Other films include Blue Collar (1978), Thelma & Louise (1991), Reservoir Dogs (1992), Bad Lieutenant (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), From Dusk till Dawn (1996), Holy Smoke! (1998), Cop Land (1997), and Youth (2015).
He has acted in the Wes Anderson films Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Isle of Dogs (2018). He played FBI Agent Peter Sadusky in both National Treasure (2004), and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2006) and reprised his role in the Disney+ series National Treasure: Edge of History (2022). From 1995 to 2017, he was a co-president of the Actors Studio, alongside Al Pacino and Ellen Burstyn.
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