<Li> Jessica Prunell as Young Donna </Li> <P> Oliver Stone, also a Vietnam veteran, read Ron Kovic's best - selling autobiography Born on the Fourth of July and was stunned to learn what Kovic had suffered after the war . Wanting to make it into a film, he bought the rights to the autobiography, and then had to find a distributor . Stone offered the project to Universal Pictures and they accepted . He then had to find a producer for the film, and eventually became producer himself, along with A. Kitman Ho . Tom Cruise was cast as Ron Kovic while Stone directed . Stone met with Ron Kovic and they discussed their experiences in Vietnam . Kovic wrote the screenplay with Stone, and appears in the film himself during the opening parade sequence as a soldier who flinches at the sound of exploding firecrackers--a reflex Cruise's Kovic will adopt himself later in the film . </P> <P> Stone wanted to film the movie in Vietnam, but since the relationship between Vietnam and the United States had not been resolved, Stone decided instead to film it in the Philippines (where Stone had previously filmed Platoon). Other scenes which do not include combat were filmed in the U.S., particularly Dallas, Texas . The film was cinematographer Robert Richardson's first experience shooting in the anamorphic format . Of the stars he worked with in this film, Stone worked again with both Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe, who originally starred in Platoon . Another star, Frank Whaley, would join Stone for the 1991 films The Doors and JFK . </P> <P> Music used in the film includes "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall" by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, "Born on the Bayou" by The Broken Homes, "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison, "American Pie" by Don McLean, "My Girl" by The Temptations, "Soldier Boy" by The Shirelles, "Venus" by Frankie Avalon, and "Moon River" by Henry Mancini . </P>

Where was born on the fourth of july filmed