Jon Voight

Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight (Yonkers, New York, December 29, 1938) is an American actor. He is best known for films such as Midnight Cowboy (1969), Odessa (1974), Coming Home (1977) —for which he won an Oscar— or The Champion (1979). He is the father of actress Angelina Jolie and actor James Haven.

Biography

The son of professional golfer Elmer Voight, whose original last name was Voytka, and Barbara Voight, both of German and Slovak descent, Jon Voight has two brothers: geology professor Barry Voight and musician and songwriter Chip Taylor He studied at Archbishop Stepinac High School (White Plains, New York), where he graduated in 1956, to carry out his university studies, then at the Catholic University of America (Washington) where he obtained the title of Bachelor of Arts in 1960.

He moved to his hometown to start his acting career. He found a role replacing one of the actors in the musical The Sound of Music, where he met his future wife and whom he would marry in 1962, also actress Lauri Peters. Between 1963 and 1969 he participated in nine television series and two films, as well as two plays between 1965 and 1967. He managed to rise to fame playing cowboy Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy (1969), along with Dustin Hoffman, performance that led him to be nominated for the first time for the Best Actor Oscar . That same year he divorced Lauri Peters.

During the 1970s he worked under great directors like Mike Nichols, John Boorman, Martin Ritt, Franco Zeffirelli and Hal Ashby. In 1972 he starred in the amazing, award-winning film Deliverance, opposite Burt Reynolds. By 1974 he worked on the film Odessa based on the novel & # 34;The Odessa File & # 34; by Frederick Forsyth.In 1979 he won the Oscar, in his second nomination, for the role of & # 34; Luke Martin & # 34; a veteran of Vietnam in Coming Home of 1978 with Jane Fonda, his participation as a boxer in the twilight of his career is also remembered, in The Champion , along with Faye Dunaway and Rick Schroder.

In the 1980s, he participated in five feature films, being the film Runaway Train, (1985) by director Andrei Konchalovsky, which would win him the 1986 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor film, drama genre, also being his third Oscar nomination. He also participated in the scripts for the films Lookin & # 39; to Get Out (1982), and Eternity (1989).

In the 1990s he acted in seven telefilms, one television series and 12 feature films, his first television work being Chernobyl: The Final Warning in 1991, followed by The Last of his Tribe in 1992.

The decade had its ups and downs in his professional career. He worked in the critically acclaimed Heat (1995) alongside Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Then came box-office and critical success with the role of the sinister agent, Jim Phelphs in one of the best movies of the year Mission: Impossible (1996), alongside Tom Cruise. In 1998 he was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award (known as the Razzie Award) for Worst Actor, for Anaconda, and for Worst Supporting Actor for Public Enemy and U Turn. To compensate, he also received the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Film that year for The Rainmaker .

Private life

He is active in politics, supporting the Republican Party.

In 1962 he married the actress Lauri Peters, whom he divorced in 1969. In 1971 he married the model and actress Marcheline Bertrand, with whom he had James Haven Voight and the famous actress Angelina Jolie Voight, they divorced in 1980.

Filmography

As an actor

Movies

TV series

As a writer

• Lookin' to Get Out (1982). From Hal Ashby

Awards and distinctions

Oscar Awards

Golden Globes

BAFTA

Cannes International Film Festival