At the urging of Paramount Pictures, Schrader actually wrote the movie for Springsteen to star in.
"Everyone in Hollywood was after Bruce at that time," Schrader said last week. "Sherry Lansing at Paramount Pictures was very keen on landing him and pretty much would have paid Bruce whatever he wanted to be in my movie."
Schrader -- who wrote "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull" and had just written and directed "American Gigolo" with Richard Gere -- gave Springsteen the script. And waited. Springsteen later told him he never even read it.
"Jon Landau [his manager] called and said, 'Bruce isn't going to be in the film, because it's giving up too much control,' " Schrader said.
Movies starring Elvis and Sinatra were mentioned. Not in a good way.
Without Springsteen attached, Paramount dropped the movie, which went into the Hollywood limbo known as turnaround.
I've always known Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen got the title Born in the USA from the working title for Light of Day (and then returned the favor with his own song, Light of Day), but I hadn't known they wanted him to star in the movie, or that there had been a Cleveland band with a song titled Born in the USA of it's own. Interesting.
Side note: as great as Born in the USA is, is Shut Out the Light actually a better song about a Vietnam vet? (it must be, since, of course, Bruce left it off the album.)
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