MOVIES - Dec. 2, 1988

A novelist filed a $30-million suit against Walt Disney Pictures on Wednesday, claiming the company stole his idea for the hit movie “Good Morning, Vietnam,” starring Robin Williams. The Los Angeles Superior Court suit alleges that the movie is based on Martyn Burke’s 1980 novel, “The Laughing War,” published by Doubleday & Co., and not on the personal experiences of Adrian Cronauer, a broadcaster for the Armed Forces Radio Service in Saigon during the Vietnam War. The Santa Monica author is suing Disney, its subsidiary Touchstone Pictures, Disney’s president Jeffrey Katzenberg and Larry Brezner, Williams’ manager. Disney representatives had no comment. Burke alleges that he had meetings with Katzenberg and Brezner in 1982 but that both passed on the project for differing reasons.