Jon Voight

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jon Voight

Jon Voight after receiving an Oscar at the 1979 ceremony.
Birth name Jonathan Vincent Voight
Born December 29, 1938 (age 67)
Yonkers, New York
Notable roles Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy
Ed Gentry in Deliverance
Luke Martin in Coming Home

Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight (born December 29, 1938) is an American actor.

While he is perhaps better known to youthful audiences as the father of Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie, Jon Voight, also an Oscar-winner and four-time nominee himself, has a long and distinguished career as both a leading man and, in recent years, character actor, with an extensive range. The blonde, blue-eyed actor with a boyish face came to prominence at the end of the sixties, with a riveting performance as a male prostitute in 1969's Best Picture winner, Midnight Cowboy, for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination. Throughout the following decades, Voight built his reputation with an array of challenging roles and has appeared in such landmark films as 1972's Deliverance, and 1978's Coming Home, for which he received an Academy Award for Best Actor. Voight's impersonation of the late newscaster Howard Cosell, in 2001's biopic Ali, earned Voight critical raves and his fourth Oscar nomination.

Contents

[edit] Life and Career

[edit] Early life

Born in Yonkers, New York, on December 29, 1938, into a Czech-American (Sudeten German) family[1] [2], Voight attended the all-boys Archbishop Stepinac High School in nearby White Plains, New York, where he first took an interest in acting. Upon graduation, he gravitated to New York City, where he pursued an acting career. Voight married actress Lauri Peters in 1962, whose credits include 1962's Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, and 1963's Summer Holiday. In the early sixties, Voight found work in television, appearing in several episodes, in different roles, of the venerable Gunsmoke, between 1962 and 1966, as well as guest spots on Naked City, and The Defenders, both in 1963, and Twelve O'Clock High, in 1966. While Voight pursued acting, his brother Wes, under the nom de plume Chip Taylor, found success as a songwriter, penning the Troggs's 1966 hit, "Wild Thing," as well as "Angel of the Morning." Voight's film debut did not come until 1967, when he took a part in Phillip Kaufman's crimefighter spoof, Fearless Frank. Voight also took a small role in 1967's western, Hour of the Gun, directed by veteran helmer John Sturges. That year he and Lauri Peters were divorced, after five years of marriage.

In 1968 Voight took the lead role in counterculture director Paul Williams' Out of It. Shot in a vérité style reminiscent of John Cassavettes' films, Out of It tapped into the zeitgeist and was geared toward the burgeoning youth culture.

[edit] Becoming a star in the 1970s

In 1969, Voight was cast in the groundbreaking Midnight Cowboy, a film that would make his career, establishing him as one of the premiere actors of his generation. Voight played Joe Buck, a naïve male hustler from Texas, adrift in New York City. He comes under the tutelage of Dustin Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo, a tubercular petty thief and con artist. The film explored the demimonde of late sixties New York and the development of an unlikely, but poignant friendship between the two main characters. Directed by John Schlesinger and based on a novel by James Herlihy, the film struck a chord with critics. Because of its controversial themes, the film was released with an X rating and would make history by being the first and only X-rated feature to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Both Voight and co-star Hoffman were nominated for Best Actor but lost out to John Wayne, star of that year's True Grit.

Now a "name" actor, in 1970 Voight went on to join the all-star cast of Mike Nichols' ill-fated adaptation of Catch-22. Adapted by Buck Henry from Joseph Heller's comic anti-war novel, and featuring the acting talents of Voight, Alan Arkin, Anthony Perkins, Art Garfunkel, Bob Newhart, Richard Benjamin, and Orson Welles, the film failed to gel, with either the critics or with audiences, despite the film's intentional parallels with the then-raging war in Vietnam. The same year Voight re-teamed with director Paul Williams to star in The Revolutionary, as a left wing college student struggling with his conscience.

Voight next appeared in 1972's Deliverance, directed by John Boorman, from a script co-written by poet James Dickey, based on his novel of the same name. The story of a canoe trip gone awry in a feral, backwoods America, the film resonated on several levels, tapping into urban anxieties about the untamed country and, perhaps, exposing the dark core of the national psyche. The film and the performances of Voight and co-star Burt Reynolds received great critical acclaim and were popular with audiences. The film even spawned a radio hit, when "Dueling Banjos" became a Top-40 staple.

In 1973, Voight married model Marcheline Bertrand, who was part Iroquois and French Canadian. A son, James Haven, was born that year, followed by a daughter, Angelina Jolie, in 1975. Both children would go on to enter their father's business, James as an actor and assistant director, and Angelina as a major movie star in her own right.

Voight played a directionless young boxer in 1973's The All American Boy, then appeared in the 1974 film, Conrack, directed by Martin Ritt. Based on the Pat Conroy novel, Voight played the title character, an idealistic young schoolteacher sent to teach underprivileged black children on a remote South Carolina island. The same year he appeared in The Odessa File, based on the Frederick Forsyth thriller, playing a young German journalist who discovers a conspiracy to protect former Nazis, still operating within Germany. This film first teamed him with the actor-director Maximilian Schell, for whom Voight would appear in 1976's End of the Game, a psychological thriller based on a story by the famed Swiss novelist and playwright, Friedrich Dürrenmatt.

In 1978, Voight assumed a role that would earn him a second major triumph, that of the paraplegic Vietnam vet Luke Martin in the Hal Ashby-directed Coming Home. The film marked the beginning of the post-Vietnam war era and reflected a coming-to-terms with the emotional costs of both the war and the anti-war movement. The presence of Jane Fonda in the female lead assured some controversy, given her outspoken views during the war, but her portrayal of a military wife who volunteers her services to help disabled vets was well-received. Voight played an embittered paraplegic with whom Fonda falls in love. The film included a much-talked-about love scene between the two and Voight's performance was rewarded with his first Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Voight's marriage to Marcheline Bertrand ended in 1978. The following year, Voight once again put on boxing gloves, starring in 1979's remake of the 1931 Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper vehicle, The Champ, with Voight playing the part of an alcoholic ex-heavyweight and a young Rick Schroder playing the role of his adoring son. What worked in 1931 did not work in 1979, and the film's sentimental treatment of the material did not find an audience.

[edit] Career in the 1980s

He next re-teamed with director Ashby in 1982's Lookin' to Get Out, in which he played Alex Kovac, a con man who has run into debt with New York mobsters and hopes to win enough in Las Vegas to pay them off. Voight both co-wrote the script and also co-produced, but it did not prove to be one of his finer efforts. He also produced and acted in 1983's Table for Five, in which he played a widower bringing up his children by himself.

It appeared that Voight's career had lost some momentum, with a paucity of good roles available. In 1985, however, he hooked up with Russian writer and director Andrei Konchalovsky to play the role of escaped con Manny Manheim, in the existential action film Runaway Train. The script was based on a story by Akira Kurosawa, and paired Voight with Eric Roberts as a fellow escapee. For his ferocious, somewhat over-the-top performance, Voight received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and won the Golden Globe's award for Best Actor. Roberts was also honored for his performance, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. While it was critically acclaimed, the film failed to attract a large audience.

Voight followed up this performance with a role in 1986's Desert Bloom, and reportedly experienced a 'spiritual awakening' toward the end of the decade. The films that followed appeared to reflect a more socially conscious orientation. In 1989 Voight starred in and helped write Eternity, which dealt with a television reporter's efforts to uncover corruption.

[edit] Work in the 1990s

He made his first foray into television movies, acting in 1991's Chernobyl: The Final Warning, followed by The Last of his Tribe, in 1992. He returned to the big screen in 1992's The Rainbow Warrior, the story of the ill-fated Greenpeace ship sunk by the French navy in the Auckland harbour. For the remainder of the decade, Voight would alternate between feature films and television movies, including a starring role in the 1993 miniseries Return to Lonesome Dove, a continuation of Larry McMurtry's western saga, 1989's Lonesome Dove. Voight played Captain Woodrow F. Call, the part played by Tommy Lee Jones in the original miniseries. In 1994, he made a cameo appearance on the Seinfeld episode The Mom & Pop Store.

In 1995 Voight played a role in the acclaimed crime film, Heat, directed by Michael Mann and starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, and appeared in the television films Convict Cowboy, and The Tin Soldier, also directing the latter film.

Voight next appeared in 1996's blockbuster Mission: Impossible, based on the popular television series from the 1960s, directed by Brian DePalma and starring Tom Cruise. Voight played the role of spymaster Jim Phelps, a role originated by Peter Graves in the television series.

The year 1997 was a busy time for Voight in which he appeared in six films, beginning with Rosewood, directed by Boyz N the Hood director John Singleton. Voight joined a cast that included Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, and Michael Rooker in the true tale of the 1923 destruction of the primarily black town of Rosewood, Florida, by the white residents of nearby Sumner. Voight played John Wright, a white Rosewood storeowner who follows his conscience and protects his black customers from the white rage. Voight next appeared in the exotic action film Anaconda, alongside Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, and Eric Stoltz. Set in the Amazon, Voight played Paul Sarone, a snake hunter obsessed with a fabled giant anaconda, who hijacks an unwitting National Geographic film crew looking for a remote Indian tribe. Voight next appeared in Oliver Stone's U Turn. He made a cameo appearance as a blind man in this eccentric neo-noir starring Sean Penn and Lopez. Voight took a supporting role in The Rainmaker, adopted from the John Grisham novel and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He played an unscrupulous lawyer representing an insurance company, facing off with a neophyte lawyer played by Matt Damon. His last film of 1997 was Boys Will Be Boys, a family comedy directed by Dom DeLuise.

The following year, Voight had the lead role in the television movie The Fixer, in which he played Jack Killoran, a lawyer who crosses ethical lines in order to "fix" things for his wealthy clients. A near-fatal accident awakens his dormant conscience and Killoran soon runs afoul of his former clients. He also took a substantial role in Tony Scott's 1997 political thriller, Enemy of the State, in which Voight played the heavy opposite Will Smith's heroic lawyer.

Voight was reunited with director Boorman in 1998's The General. Set in Dublin, Ireland, the film tells the true-life story of the charismatic leader of a gang of thieves, Martin Cahill, at odds with both the police and the IRA. Voight gives a convincing performance as Inspector Ned Kenny, determined to bring Cahill to justice. Boorman shot the film on location, in black and white, and largely financed it himself. The freedom to work without interference from the studios allowed him to make what feels like a personal film and both Brendan Gleeson in the lead, and Voight in the main supporting role, give memorable performances.

Voight next appeared in 1999's Varsity Blues, starring Dawson's Creek star James Van Der Beek. Voight played a blunt, autocratic football coach, pitted in a test of wills against his star player, portrayed by Van Der Beek. Produced by fledgling MTV Pictures, the film became a surprise hit and helped connect Voight with a younger audience.

Voight played Noah in the 1999 television production Noah's Ark, and appeared in Second String, also for TV. He also appeared in the feature A Dog of Flanders, a remake of a popular film set in Belgium. The following year Voight would watch from the audience as his daughter received the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in 1999's Girl, Interrupted.

[edit] Recent career

Voight next nailed down the role of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 2001's blockbuster, Pearl Harbor, reportedly beating out Gene Hackman for the role (his performance was received favorably by critics). Also that year, he appeared as Lord Croft, father of the title character of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Based on a popular video game, the digital adventuress was played on the big screen by Voight's real-life daughter, Jolie.

That year, he also appeared in Zoolander, directed by Ben Stiller who starred as the title character, a vapid supermodel with humble roots. Voight appeared as Zoolander's coal-miner father. The film extracts both pathos and cruel humor from the scenes of Zoolander's return home, when he enters the mines alongside his father and brothers and Voight expresses his unspoken disgust at his son's chosen profession.

Also in 2001, Voight joined Leelee Sobieski, Hank Azaria, and David Schwimmer in the made-for-television movie, Uprising, which was based on the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. Voight played Major-General Jurgen Stroop, the officer responsible for the destruction of the Jewish resistance.

Director Michael Mann tagged Voight for a small, but crucial role in the 2001 biopic Ali, which starred Will Smith as the controversial former heavyweight champ, Muhammad Ali. Voight was almost unrecognizable under his make-up and toupee, as he impersonated the sports broadcaster Howard Cosell. Voight captured the tone and inflection in Cosell's familiar voice perfectly, in a convincing performance, and the scenes between Ali and Cosell, affectionately bantering with one another, are among the film's most rewarding. As Ella Taylor, in LA Weekly, wrote, "Ali boasts a whole tribe of outstanding secondary performances, of which Jon Voight's Cosell, in an outrageous rug and several tons of pasty-face makeup, is easily the funniest." Voight received his fourth Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, for his performance, extending his reign as a talented actor.

In the critically-acclaimed CBS miniseries Pope John Paul II, released in December 2005, Voight portrayed the pontiff from the time of his election until his death, garnering an Emmy nomination for the part.

[edit] Partial filmography

Awards
Preceded by
Richard Dreyfuss
for The Goodbye Girl		 Academy Award for Best Actor
1978
for Coming Home		 Succeeded by
Dustin Hoffman
for Kramer vs. Kramer

[edit] References

  1. ^ Jon Voight bio from Imdb
  2. ^ Angelina Jolie bio from Imdb

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../j/o/n/Jon_Voight_026d.html"