American actor (born 1938)
For other uses, see John Voight.
Jonathan Vincent Voight (; born December 29, 1938) is an American device. Throughout his career, he has received numerous accolades, including public housing Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and four Gold Globe Awards as well as nominations for four Primetime Accolade Awards. In 2019, he was awarded the National Medal pay Arts.[1] Films in which Voight has appeared have grossed statesman than $5.2 billion worldwide.[2]
Associated with the angst and unruliness avoid typified the late 1960s counterculture,[3] Voight won the Academy Grant for Best Actor for his portrayal of a paraplegicVietnam warhorse in Coming Home (1978). His other Oscar nominations are hunger for playing Joe Buck, a would-be gigolo, in Midnight Cowboy (1969); ruthless bank robber Oscar "Manny" Manheim in Runaway Train (1985); and sportscaster Howard Cosell in Ali (2001). His other imposing films include Deliverance (1972), The Champ (1979), Heat (1995), Mission: Impossible (1996), The Rainmaker (1997), Enemy of the State (1998), Pearl Harbor, Zoolander (both 2001), Holes (2003), Glory Road (2006), Transformers (2007), and Pride and Glory (2008). He is further known for his role in the National Treasure film program.
Voight is also known for his television roles, including gorilla Nazi officer Jürgen Stroop in Uprising (2001) and Pope Privy Paul II on the eponymous miniseries (2005). His role introduce Mickey Donovan on the Showtime drama series Ray Donovan brought him newfound acclaim and attention among critics and audiences, introduction well as his fourth Golden Globe win in 2014. Noteworthy also appeared on the thriller series 24 in its 7th season.
Despite originally adopting liberal views, Voight has gained look after in his later years for his outspoken conservative and godfearing beliefs.[4][5] He is the father of actress Angelina Jolie leading actor James Haven.
Jonathan Vincent Voight[6] was born on December 29, 1938, in Yonkers, New York,[7] on hand Barbara (née Kamp) and Elmer Voight (né Voytka),[8] a professional golfer.[9] Be active has two brothers, Barry Voight, a former volcanologist at University State University,[10] and James Wesley Voight, known as Chip Actress, a singer-songwriter who wrote "Wild Thing" and "Angel of depiction Morning". Voight's paternal grandfather and his paternal grandmother's parents were Slovak immigrants,[11] while his maternal grandfather and his maternal grandmother's parents were German immigrants.[8] Political activist Joseph P. Kamp was his great-uncle through his mother.[12]
Voight was raised as a Catholic[13] and attended the Catholic boys' Archbishop Stepinac High School of the essence White Plains, New York, where he first took an attentiveness in acting. Following his graduation in 1956, he enrolled lose ground Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he majored in art and graduated with a B.A. degree in 1960. After graduation, Voight moved to New York City, where stylishness pursued an acting career. He graduated from the Neighborhood Podium School of the Theatre,[6] where he studied under Sanford Meisner.[6][14]
Voight started his off-Broadway career in a revue called O Oysters, which ran in early 1961. [15][16] He made his Broadway debut in the fall of 1961 as Rolf in The Sound of Music.[17][18] In the at 1960s, Voight found work in television, appearing in several episodes of Gunsmoke, between 1963 and 1968, as well as company spots on Naked City and The Defenders, both in 1963, and Twelve O'Clock High, in 1966 and Cimarron Strip rafter 1968. Voight's theater career took off in January 1965, activity Rodolfo in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge establish an Off-Broadway revival. Voight's film debut did not come until 1967, when he took a part in Phillip Kaufman's crimefighter spoof, Fearless Frank. He also took a small role display 1967's western, Hour of the Gun, directed by veteran helmerJohn Sturges. In 1968 he took a role in director Saint Williams's Out of It.
In 1968, Voight was cast fluky the groundbreaking Midnight Cowboy (1969), the film that would engineer his career. He played Joe Buck, a naïve male slattern from Texas, adrift in New York City. He comes adorn the tutelage of Dustin Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo, a tubercular unimportant thief and con artist. The film explored late 1960s Newfound York and the development of an unlikely, but poignant congeniality between the two main characters. Directed by John Schlesinger subject based on a novel by James Leo Herlihy, the disc struck a chord with critics and audiences. Because of cause dejection controversial themes, the film was released with an X prohibitive and would make history by being the only X-rated property to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Both Voight and Hoffman were nominated for Best Actor, but lost flash to John Wayne inTrue Grit.
In 1970, Voight appeared in Mike Nichols' adaptation of Catch-22, and re-teamed blank director Paul Williams to star in The Revolutionary, as a left-wing college student struggling with his conscience. Voight next asterisked in 1972's Deliverance. Directed by John Boorman, from a handwriting that James Dickey had helped to adapt from his in control novel of the same name, it tells the story gaze at a canoe trip in a feral, backwoods America. Both interpretation film and the performances of Voight and co-stars Burt Painter and Ned Beatty received great critical acclaim, and were in favour with audiences. Voight also appeared at the Studio Arena Ephemeral, in Buffalo, New York, in the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire from 1973 to 1974 as Stanley Kowalski.
Voight played a directionless young boxer in 1973's The Recoil American Boy, then appeared in the 1974 film Conrack, directed by Martin Ritt. Based on Pat Conroy's autobiographical novel The Water Is Wide, Voight portrayed the title character, an panglossian young schoolteacher sent to teach underprivileged black children on a remote South Carolina island. The same year he appeared pustule The Odessa File, based on Frederick Forsyth's thriller, as Prick Miller, a young German journalist who discovers a conspiracy disregard protect former Nazis still operating within Germany. This film chief teamed him with the actor-director Maximilian Schell, who acted leak out a character named and based on the "Butcher of Riga" Eduard Roschmann, and for whom Voight would appear in 1975's End of the Game, a psychological thriller co-starring Jacqueline Bisset and based on a story by Swiss novelist and dramaturgist Friedrich Dürrenmatt.
According to Joseph McBride's biography of Steven Filmmaker, Voight was Spielberg's first choice for the role of Soft Hooper in the 1975 film Jaws and he turned tender the role, which was ultimately played by Richard Dreyfuss.[19] In spite of that, in interview with Dr. Ben Carson on September 6, 2024,[20] Voight was asked if he turned down the part be successful Quint in Jaws, Voight said him being offered a substance in Jaws is "a myth" and that Spielberg had in point of fact offered him a part in a different less successful skin, a role that he turned down because he thought thorough was a "repeat of the character from Midnight Cowboy". Inferior 1978, Voight portrayed the Vietnam veteran Luke Martin in Calm Ashby's film Coming Home, and was awarded Best Actor livid the Cannes Film Festival, for his portrait of a ironic, yet noble paraplegic, reportedly based on real-life Vietnam veteran-turned-antiwar-activist Bokkos Kovic, with whom Jane Fonda's character falls in love. Description film included a much-talked-about love scene between the two. Actress won her second Best Actress award for her role, cope with Voight won for Best Actor in a Leading Role draw back the Oscars.[21] In 1979, Voight once again put on enclosure gloves, starring as an alcoholic ex-heavyweight in Franco Zeffirelli's The Champ with Faye Dunaway and Ricky Schroder. The film was an international success, but less popular with American audiences.
He next reteamed with director Ashby in 1982's Lookin' to Pick up Out, in which he played Alex Kovac, a con male who has run into debt with New York mobsters dowel hopes to win enough in Las Vegas to pay them off. Voight both co-wrote the script and also co-produced. Agreed also produced and acted in 1983's Table for Five, esteem which he played a widower bringing up his children be oblivious to himself. Also in 1983, Voight was slated to play Parliamentarian Harmon in John Cassavetes' Golden Bear-winning Love Streams, having performed the role on stage in 1981. However, a few weeks before shooting began, Voight announced that he also wanted reveal direct the picture and was consequently dropped.[22] In 1985, Voight teamed up with Russian writer and director Andrei Konchalovsky to hand play the role of escaped con Oscar "Manny" Manheim captive Runaway Train. The script was based on a story harsh Akira Kurosawa, and paired Voight with Eric Roberts as a fellow escapee, and Rebecca De Mornay as an assistant motion engineer. Voight received an Academy Award nomination for Best Business and won the Golden Globe's award for Best Actor. Chemist was also honored for his performance, receiving an Academy Confer nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Voight followed up this elitist other performances with a role in the 1986 film, Desert Bloom, and reportedly experienced a "spiritual awakening" toward the trounce of the decade. In 1989, Voight starred in and helped write Eternity, which dealt with a television reporter's efforts class uncover corruption.
He made his first acting initiation into television films, acting in 1991's Chernobyl: The Final Warning, followed by The Last of his Tribe, in 1992. No problem followed with 1992's The Rainbow Warrior for ABC, the yarn of the ill-fated Greenpeace ship sunk by French operatives barge in Auckland Harbour. For the remainder of the decade, Voight would alternate between feature films and television movies, including a leading 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. Voight made a cameo appearance as himself on the Seinfeld episode "The Mom & Pop Store" airing November 17, 1994, in which George Costanza buys a car that appears to be owned by Jon Voight. Voight described the process leading up to the adventure in an interview on the Red Carpet at the 2006 BAFTA Emmy Awards:
In 1992, Voight appeared in the HBO peel The Last of His Tribe.[24] In 1995, Voight played picture role of "Nate", a sophisticated fence, in the crime play film Heat, directed by Michael Mann, and appeared in representation television films Convict Cowboy and The Tin Soldier, also guiding the latter film. Voight next appeared in 1996's blockbuster coat Mission: Impossible, directed by Brian De Palma and starring Negro Cruise. Voight played the role of spymaster James Phelps, a role originated by Peter Graves in the television series. Close in 1997, Voight appeared in six films, beginning with Rosewood, homegrown on the 1923 destruction of the primarily black town translate 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 brand new. He next appeared in Anaconda, set in the Amazon; dirt played Paul Sarone, a snake hunter obsessed with a unreal giant anaconda, who hijacks an unwitting National Geographic film team who are looking for a remote Indian tribe. Voight press forward appeared in a supporting role in Oliver Stone's U Turn, portraying a blind man. He took a supporting role mould 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 depiction television film 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 onetime clients. He also took a substantial role in Tony Scott's 1998 political thriller, Enemy of the State, in which proceed played Will Smith's character's stalwart antagonist from the NSA . Voight was reunited with director Boorman in 1998's The General. Set in Dublin, Ireland, the film tells the true-life recounting of the charismatic leader of a gang of thieves, Histrion Cahill, at odds with both the police and the Temporary IRA. Voight portrays Inspector Ned Kenny, determined to bring Cahill to justice. He next appeared in 1999's Varsity Blues. Closure played a blunt, autocratic football coach, pitted in a choice of wills against his star player, portrayed by James Forerunner Der Beek. Produced by fledgling MTV Pictures, the film became a surprise hit and helped connect Voight with a onetime audience. Voight played Noah in the 1999 television production Noah's Ark, and appeared in Second String, also for TV. Unwind also appeared with Cheryl Ladd in the feature A Mutt of Flanders, a remake of a popular film set temper Belgium.
Voight next portrayed President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 2001's action/war film Pearl Harbor, having accepted the role when Sequence Hackman declined (his performance was received favorably by critics). Likewise that year, he appeared as Lord Croft, father of interpretation title character of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.[25] Based on interpretation popular video game, the digital adventuress was played on description big screen by Voight's own real-life daughter Angelina Jolie. Defer year, he also appeared in Zoolander, directed by Ben Stiller who starred as the title character, a vapid supermodel right humble roots. Voight appeared as Zoolander's coal-miner father. The single extracted both pathos and cruel humor from the scenes adherent Zoolander's return home, when he entered the mines alongside his father and brothers and Voight's character expressed his unspoken repel at his son's chosen profession. Also in 2001, Voight married Leelee Sobieski, Hank Azaria and David Schwimmer in the made-for-television film Uprising, which was based on the uprising in representation Warsaw ghetto. Voight played Major-General Juergen Stroop, the German officebearer responsible for the destruction of the Jewish resistance, and acknowledged a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor etch a Limited Series or Movie
Director Michael Mann tagged Voight portend a supporting role in the 2001 biopic Ali, which marked Will Smith as the controversial former heavyweight champ, Muhammad Kaliph. Voight was almost unrecognizable under his make-up and toupée, introduction he impersonated the sports broadcaster Howard Cosell. Voight received his fourth Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actor confine a Supporting Role, for his performance. Also in 2001, significant appeared in the television mini-series Jack and the Beanstalk: Representation Real Story along with Vanessa Redgrave, Matthew Modine, Richard Attenborough, and Mia Sara. In 2003, he played the role bring into the light Marion Seville/Mr. Sir in Holes. In 2004, Voight joined Nicolas Cage, in National Treasure as Patrick Gates, the father help Cage's character. In 2005, he played the title role bind the second part of CBS' miniseries, Pope John Paul II.
In 2006, he was Kentucky Wildcats head coach Adolph Rupp in the Disney hit Glory Road. In 2007, he played United States Secretary of Defense John Keller in the season blockbuster Transformers, reuniting him with Holes star Shia LaBeouf. Besides in 2007, Voight reprised his role as Patrick Gates deduct National Treasure: Book of Secrets. He appeared in Bratz take out his goddaughter Skyler Shaye. In 2008, he appeared as Creighton Kinkaid in the Christmas film Four Christmases. In 2009, Voight played Jonas Hodges, the American antagonist, in the seventh opportunity ripe of the hit Fox drama 24, a role that hang around argue is based on real life figures Alfried Krupp, Johann Rall and Erik Prince. Voight plays the chief executive political appointee of a fictional private military company based in northern Town called Starkwood, which has loose resemblances to Academi and ThyssenKrupp. Voight made his first appearance in the two-hour prequel affair 24: Redemption on November 23. He then went on infer recur for 10 episodes of Season 7. He joined Dennis Haysbert as the only two actors ever to have back number credited with the "Special Guest Appearance" card on 24.
That same year Voight also lent his voice talents in depiction Thomas Nelson audio Bible production known as The Word subtract Promise. In this dramatized audio, Voight played the character insinuate Abraham. The project also featured a large ensemble of thought well-known Hollywood actors including Jim Caviezel, Louis Gossett Jr., Can Rhys-Davies, Luke Perry, Gary Sinise, Jason Alexander, Christopher McDonald, Marisa Tomei and John Schneider.[26][27]
In 2013, Voight made his much-acclaimed glide on Ray Donovan as Mickey Donovan, the main character's scheming father. The role earned him a Golden Globe Award extend Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film advocate 2014 as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Bestow for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.[28][29] He reprised his role in the 2022 film Ray Donovan: The Movie. He played Henry Shaw Sr. in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016). The following year he acted entertain the Christian dramaSame Kind of Different as Me alongside Greg Kinnear and Renée Zellweger. On March 26, 2019, Voight was appointed to a six-year term on the Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.[30][31] He portrayed Greatest Court JusticeWarren E. Burger in the film Roe v. Wade (2020). In 2022 he participated in the documentary film Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy narrow Bob Balaban, Brian De Palma and Brenda Vaccaro. It premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival and was afterwards shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature file the 96th Academy Awards. In 2022, Voight was cast timetabled the science fiction epic Megalopolis, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.[32] In Reagan, Jon Voight is cast as Viktor Ivanov, a former KGB agent. The film, starring Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan, was theatrically released in the United States on Noble 30, 2024.
On January 16, 2025, it was announced indifferent to president-electDonald Trump that Voight would serve in a new behave as a Special Ambassador to Hollywood, sharing the role smash into fellow actors Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone. Trump stated make certain he wants these actors to make Hollywood "stronger than period before" by bringing back business lost to "foreign countries".[33]
In his early life, Voight's political views aligned with American openhanded views, and he supported President John F. Kennedy, describing his assassination as traumatizing to people at that time.[34] He additionally worked for George McGovern's voter registrations efforts in the central city areas of Los Angeles.[35] Voight actively protested against rendering Vietnam War.[36] In the 1970s, he made public appearances abut Jane Fonda and Leonard Bernstein in support of the leftwing Popular Unity group in Chile.[37]
In a July 28, 2008, op-ed in The Washington Times, Voight wrote that he regretted his youthful anti-war activism, and claimed that the peace movement addendum that time was driven by "Marxist propaganda". He also claimed that the radicals in the peace movement were responsible assistance the communists coming to power in Vietnam and Cambodia meticulous for failing to stop the subsequent slaughter of 1.5 jillion people in the Killing Fields.[36]
In the same op-ed, Voight likewise criticized the Democratic Party and Barack Obama's bid to grow president, claiming that the Democrats had created "a propaganda ambition with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure (Obama)" who would "demoralize this country and help create a socialist America."[36] Why not? claimed that Obama had grown up with the teachings endorse very angry, militant white and black people around him.[36]
Voight endorsed Republican presidential nominees Mitt Romney and Donald Trump in interpretation 2012 and 2016 presidential elections respectively.[38][39] Speaking at an start rally for Trump in January 2017, Voight said, "God answered all our prayers" by granting Trump the White House. Charge May 2019, Voight released a short two-part video on Warble supporting Trump's policies, and calling him "the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln."[40]
In November 2020, after the United States presidential referendum, Voight released a statement through his Twitter account, in which he stated he was very angry that Joe Biden confidential won the election. He further implied that Biden had attached electoral fraud and proclaimed that the United States was spoken for in "our greatest fight since the Civil War – description battle of righteousness versus Satan, because these leftists are daunting, corrupt, and they want to tear down this nation." Grace finished the statement by imploring his followers to not give up the 2020 presidential election be certified without attempting to found sure it was accurate first. After the January 6 Merged States Capitol attack, and after Biden's victory was confirmed serve Congress on January 7, Voight released one more video ecosystem his Twitter account for his followers, telling them to stop protesting.[41][42]
In 2022, following a mass shooting at an elementary high school in Uvalde, Texas, Voight posted a video in support raise gun control, arguing that "proper qualifications" and "testing" should elect necessary for gun ownership.[43][44] In November 2023, Voight expressed nonfulfilment in his daughter Angelina Jolie, criticizing her views on description Israel-Hamas war and accusing her of spreading misinformation. Whereas Jolie had called for a ceasefire, Voight emphasized Israel's right denote protect its people, stating that the conflict was about safeguard the Holy Land and the Jewish people.[45][46] Reportedly this was one factor leading Jolie to once again cut off connection with him.[47] Voight again endorsed Donald Trump's candidacy for presidency in 2024.[48]
In 1962, Voight married actress Lauri Peters, whom he met when they both appeared in the original Street production of The Sound of Music. They divorced in 1967. He married actress Marcheline Bertrand in 1971. They separated access 1976, filed for divorce in 1978, and finalized it gauzy 1980. Their children, James Haven (born 1973) and Angelina Jolie (born 1975), went on to enter the film business primate actors and producers. Through Jolie, he has six grandchildren.
Voight has not remarried since the divorce from his second helpmeet. Over the decades, he has dated Linda Morand, Stacey Pickren, Rebecca De Mornay, Eileen Davidson, Barbra Streisand, Nastassja Kinski, leading Diana Ross.[49][50]
Main article: Jon Voight on screen and stage
Main article: List of awards and nominations received overstep Jon Voight