The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 344

1 RELATIVELY THE HIE BASED Oil HIE MAKING OF AH AT THE END OF THE MOVIE MONEY FOR NOTHING the hero, Joey Coyle, stands in the airport concourse, hands held high, in a dramatic shower of hundred-dollar bills. Police surround him, guns drawn. "Run!" shouts Joey's girlfriend, Monica. "Where?" answers Joey plaintively. The gig is up.

The wild weeklong sprint to keep $1.2 million that fell off an armored truck is over. Joey is trapped, not only by the law, but by the stronger, more lasting grip of fame. As he's led from the airport, police struggle to keep reporters and Joey's new fans from crowding in. The scene never happened in real life there was no Monica, no shower of cash, no press and fans, and Joey's exact words are unprintable but the movie version aptly illustrates what Hollywood means when it says it's telling a "True Story." Generous Joey. Loyal Joey.

Clever Joey. Joey the lover, Joey the anguished and articulate spokesman for Generation as the myth goes national, it gains size and speed. "It's important not to let the facts get in the way of the truth," said Tom Musca, who produced and co-wrote the screenplay for Money with director Ramon Menendez. He really said that. But the facts very tragically got in the way this time.

Three weeks before the nationwide release of Money for Nothing in September, the real Joey Coyle wrapped an electrical cord around his neck and hanged himself in the stairwell of his South Philadelphia home. Talk about a bummer. Hollywood Pictures, a subsidiary of Disney Studios, had planned a publicity blitz for Joey and John Cusack, the actor who so cleverly portrays Coyle in the film. Tm going to make you a god," Cusack promised his new buddy. Talk shows, magazine interviews, newspaper profiles by the time they were finished, John Joey would have perfected a chummy banter, a whole routine of one-liners and heartwarming anecdotes, people would have started thinking, as Joey's bereaved girlfriend says, "John and Joey really were amazingly alike!" The upbeat little feature film, "Based on a True Story," with its haunting subtheme of generational angst and class desperation, was supposed to end with a cheerful line about how Joey was never convicted of a crime.

His dissolute character is somehow redeemed by the zany ordeal. Joey skips jail! Joey learns some important things about himself. Joey gets the girl! Hey, this guy this real guy has at least a shot here at living happily ever after! Instead, we have this chilling downbeat, spliced in hastily at the end of the final edit: "In Memory of Joey Coyle." For those who haven't already left the theater, it's a bucket of ice water. That's the trouble with facts. They're a whole lot less predictable than what passes for the truth.

IN THE CASE OF MONEY FOR NOTHING, I HAD A ringside seat. As one of dozens of local reporters who chased the story of the missing $1.2 million in 1981, 1 had a minor role in generating the original (and somewhat misconceived) legend of Joey Coyle. Then, as author of "Finders Keepers," a three-part series in this magazine in 1 986 that reconstructed the whole crazy week, I got to know the real Coyle, whose harrowing and candid version of his week on the run effectively punctured the myth with what we might now call "The Actual True Story." Hollywood Pictures then bought film rights from me and everyone else involved, and went to work converting what actually happened back into something more like the original myth. As an occasional consultant, I had a chance to witness the careful Hollywoodization firsthand. continued on next page Mark Bowden is an Inquirer staff writer.

Photography by Mkhwl Bryant I I ACTUAL MOVIE BY Mil MEH.