- Title: USA: FILM PREMIERE OF 'THE PEOPLE VS LARRY FLINT'
- Date: 14th November 1996
- Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA (NOVEMBER 14 AND DECEMBER 2 1996 ) (RTV ) (NIGHT SCENES) (* BEWARE FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY **) EXTERIOR OF PREMIERE THEATRE JAMES CROMWELL ARRIVES PHOTOGRAPHERS TAKE PICTURES CROMWELL (SOUNDBITE ENGLISH) SAYS MILOS FORMAN IS WHAT DREW HIM TO THE PROJECT AND IT'S AN IMPORTANT CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE BRETT HARRELSON (SOUNDBITE ENGLISH) JOK
- Embargoed: 29th November 1996 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES AND FILM LOCATIONS
- Country: USA
- Reuters ID: LVAC3A6KZKS0MELJ62418TDRVGZF
- Story Text: Woody Harrelson stars as controversial pornographic publisher Larry Flynt in the new drama "The People Vs. Larry Flynt." Directed by two-time Oscar winner Milos Forman, the film also stars rock musician Courtney Love.
Set in the early 1970s through to the late 1980s, the film starts in the 70s, the decade which was the twilight of the sexual revolution in America.
In this climate, a sex industry entrepreneur named Larry Flynt leveraged a small string of Ohio strip clubs into the beginnings of a publishing empire.
The cornerstone of that empire was the magazine "Hustler," a raw and raunchy publication that pushed the limits of American tolerance.
Its publisher, a grade-school dropout and Kentucky redneck, was nobody's hero, but circumstance would cast him as the era's last crusader, a man who would risk everything for the sake of protecting his first amendment rights to free speech.
Flynt's lifelong battle against the system ran him up against some of the 20th century's most notable figures and institutions, including the leader of the Moral Majority,Reverend Jerry Falwell, Jacqueline Onassis and the United States Supreme Court.
But through it all, his biggest supporter was his fourth wife Althea Leasure, played by Courtney Love.
Leasure was an underaged but streetwise dancer when Flynt first met and fell in love with her.
Her life with Flynt was a series of self-destructive ups and downs, ending when she died of AIDS following a heroin addiction.
Also in the film's cast is newcomer Edward Norton, who plays Flynt's longtime counsellor, lawyer and friend Alan Isaacman.
In real life, Flynt had many lawyers, but this character is a combination of all of them. This film is Norton's follow-up to his highly-acclaimed performance in the Richard Gere legal thriller "Primal Fear." Woody Harrelson's real-life brother Brett Harrelson plays Larry Flynt's brother, Jimmy, who stuck by his brother through all the phases of his career in the publishing industry.
This is the first feature role for Brett and his first time working with brother Woody.
Other cast members include "Babe" star and Oscar nominee James Cromwell, who plays Charles Keating, the influential businessman who crusaded against Flynt and his material early in his career in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Making a film about a man crusading for the right to free speech was especially important for director Milos Forman.
Born and raised in Czechoslovakia, Forman was nine when his parents were arrested by the Nazis and killed in concentration camps.
He later lived under the oppression of the communists who took over the country following World War II.
Having lived through two regimes that repressed its citizens' right to speak their opinions freely, Forman felt it only appropriate that he direct a film about this issue.
The director had previously helmed such projects as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Amadeus." "The People Vs Larry Flynt" was produced by Oliver Stone who was able to convince the real Larry Flynt to participate actively in the project.
Flynt helped the filmmakers develop the script accurately and also visited the set several times.
Both Harrelson and Courtney Love were able to ask him questions about their characters and Flynt grew so close to the actors, he even put up the cash to protect Love from a potential embarassment.
Harrelson says Flynt became aware of some compromising pictures taken of Love and paid to get them off the market to ensure she was never embarrassed by their publication.
Woody Harrelson's film career has included the films "White Men Can't Jump" and "Money Train" with Wesley Snipes, "Indecent Proposal" with Demi Moore and Robert Redford and the part of the homicidal media darling Micky for director Oliver Stone in "Natural Born Killers." Courtney Love's film career is not as extensive. She's played small parts in the films "Feeling Minnesota" and Alex Cox's "Sid and Nancy." Her real stardom has come in the music field, where her alternative rock group "Hole" topped nearly every critic's music poll for 1994.
Her album "Live Through This" was certified platinum in April 1995.
Love was also married to fellow rocker Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of the band "Nirvana" who killed himself in the spring of 1995. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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