...Rolling Stone magazine published its 1987 Yearbook edition, which featured, among many other favorites of the Big Eighties, a section called “New Faces,” and amidst those names are Kevin Costner, Dennis Quaid, Holly Hunter and L.L. Cool J, as sampling that became an ironic indication of Rolling Stone’s absence from the cutting edge, since all four stars had already proven their talents many years before being sainted by the heavily commercialized RS.
Quaid had already been a “new face” for nearly a decade, when he appeared as Mike in the groundbreaking and award-winning film Breaking Away alongside Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Christopher and Daniel Stern. Kevin Costner has already been known to movie goers since 1980’s Malibu Hot Summer and 1982’s Chasing Dreams. (He was infamously cut in the final editing of The Big Chill, which would have linked him to that film’s stellar cast in 1983). Still, his face was hardly “new” in 87.
As for Holly Hunter, well, she had only been acting since childhood, though 87 was probably her busiest year with four total film releases (including Raising Arizona and Broadcast News). L.L. Cool J.? He was already old news to music fans by the time Rolling Stone decided he was cutting edge.
But the quasi-messianic figure of U2’s Bono wins the award that year: he got his face in the mosaic on the cover the 1987 Yearbook twice—upper left corner, and upper right. Talk about adulation! Well, it was a double issue, after all.
