Background

Ethnicity: Voight's paternal grandfather and his paternal grandmother's parents were Slovak immigrants, while his maternal grandfather and his maternal grandmother's parents were German immigrants.

Jonathan Vincent Voight was born on December 29, 1938, in Yonkers, New York, United States. He was the son of Barbara Kamp and Elmer Voight, a professional golfer. He has two brothers, Barry Voight and Wesley Voight.

Education

Voight attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York. It was there that he began acting, playing the comedic role of Count Pepi Le Loup in the school's annual musical, The Song of Norway. In 1956, he enrolled at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he majored in art and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1960.

Career

Voight began his acting career on Broadway, acting in several stage productions during the 1960s and the 1970s, including the musical The Sound of Music, the plays A View from the Bridge and A Streetcar Named Desire, and the Shakespearean works Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Hamlet. Voight acted in episodes of television series during this period, appearing on such shows as Gunsmoke and 12 o’clock High.

Voight appeared in his first film, Fearless Frank, in 1967. The 1967's western, Hour of the Gun, followed. In 1969 he was cast as Joe Buck, a naive male hustler, in the drama film ‘Midnight Cowboy.’ The film proved to be a critical success which effectively launched young Voight’s career. Voight then appeared in Mike Nichols’s war comedy Catch-22 and starred as an angry young man in The Revolutionary, both in 1970.

For the next two decades, Voight played Ed Gentry in the dramatic thriller ‘Deliverance’ in 1972 and appeared in several hit films like ‘Conrack’ (1974), ‘The Odessa File’ (1974), ‘End of the Game’ (1976), and ‘Coming Home’ (1978). In 1979, Voight played the part of an alcoholic ex-heavyweight in the remake of the 1931 film ‘The Champ’ which went on to become an international hit.

Voight’s career slowed down a bit during the 1980s. However, he finally made a mark with his role as Oscar "Manny" Manheim in Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's thriller Runaway Train.

In the 1990s Voight became active on television and appeared in the television movie ‘Chernobyl: The Final Warning’ in 1991, followed by ‘The Last of his Tribe’, in 1992. He also acted in ‘The Rainbow Warrior’ in 1992, the story of the ill-fated Greenpeace ship sunk by French operatives in the Auckland Harbor.

After playing Robert De Niro's underworld contact in Michael Mann's 1995 drama Heat, Voight once again began to star in big budget offerings, including 1996's Mission: Impossible, which went on to become a blockbuster, as well as The Rainmaker and 1998's Enemy of the State. Also during 1997, he made some bad choices and appeared in the films ‘Anaconda’ and ‘Most Wanted’.

Voight’s career saw a resurgence in the 2000s, with his being cast as the journalist Howard Cosell in the film ‘Ali’ in a short but crucial role. In 2001, he delivered well-received performances as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Pearl Harbor and as the patriarch in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. The same year, he appeared in the television mini-series Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story.

In 2002 Voight performed in the acclaimed NBC miniseries Uprising. He also found great success with the 2004 sleeper hit Holes and an adventure film National Treasure as Patrick Gates, the role he reprised in 2007 in National Treasure: Book of Secrets. The same year, he played United States Secretary of Defense John Keller in the summer blockbuster Transformers, reuniting him with Holes star Shia LaBeouf.

Voight Later co-starred with Edward Norton and Colin Farrell in Pride and Glory (2008), a story of familial corruption among New York City police officers. In 2009, Voight played Jonas Hodges, the American antagonist, in the seventh season of the hit Fox drama 24. In 2013, Voight appeared on Ray Donovan as Mickey Donovan, a Boston ex-con.

On March 26, 2019, Jon Voight was appointed to a six year term on the Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC as reported the next day by the Washington Post and Fox News.

Achievements

• Jon Voight’s performances have garnered him an Academy Award and other honors, such as four Golden Globe Awards, in a career that includes work in film, television, and the theater. Some of actor’s most memorable roles are as Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy, which earned him an Academy Award nomination, and as Luke Martin in Coming Home, which, in addition to the Academy Award, brought him the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor.

Works

More photos

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  • Ali

    (Will Smith plays Ali, from 1964, when he won the world he...)

    2001
  • Surviving the Wild

    (Following the untimely death of his grandpa Gus (Jon Voig...)

    2018
  • J.L. Family Ranch

    (Veteran rancher John Landsburg (Jon Voight) is forced to ...)

    2017
  • Heat

    (A stellar cast in this taut psychological drama about an ...)

    1995
  • The Odessa File

    (A German journalist attempts to track down Nazi war crimi...)

    1974
  • Pride and Glory

    (Edward Norton and Colin Farrell star in this crime thrill...)

    2008
  • The Champ

    (The world looks at Billy Flynn and sees a has-been who se...)

    1979
  • Anaconda

    (A monstrous snake terrorizes filmmakers on the Amazon Riv...)

    1997
  • Coming Home

    (When Marine Captain Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern, Black Sunday) l...)

    1978
  • Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

    (Video game adventurer Lara Croft comes to life in a movie...)

    2001
  • 24: Redemption

    (It's Inauguration Day in America and President Elect Alli...)

    2008
  • The Last of His Tribe

    (Anthropologist Jon Voight brings the last 'wild' Native A...)

    1992
  • Enemy Of The State

    (An attorney finds his life threatened when he becomes the...)

    1998
  • Runaway Train

    (Two escaped convicts and an innocent young woman are aboa...)

    1985
  • Mission: Impossible

    (Ethan Hunt, a secret agent, is framed for the deaths of h...)

    1996
  • Glory Road

    (Inspiring, true story of the first all-black college bask...)

    2006
  • Midnight Cowboy

    (A small town dreamer. A small time con man. An unlikely f...)

    1969
  • Ray Donovan 2016
  • Pope John Paul II 2005

Religion

Voight was raised as a Catholic. In the CBS miniseries Pope John Paul II, released in December 2005, Voight portrayed the pontiff from the time of his election until his death.

Politics

In his early life, Voight held to American liberal views and actively supported President John F. Kennedy. Voight actively protested against the Vietnam War and supported the leftist Unidad Popular group in Chile. However, in later years, Voight regretted his youthful anti-war activism and adopted conservative viewpoints.

One of the few outspoken Republicans in Hollywood, Voight voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. He actively supported Rudy Giuliani's campaign to win the Republican nomination in 2008, but later endorsed eventual nominee Sen. John McCain. He also attended the Republican National Convention in 2008. Voight criticised the Democratic Party and Barack Obama's bid to become president claiming that Obama had grown up with the teachings of very angry, militant white and black people around him.

Voight was one of the very few American celebrities to declare his support for Donald Trump as president and spoke at his inauguration in 2017. In May 2019, Voight released a short two-part video on Twitter supporting President Trump's policies, and calling him "the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln".

Views

Quotations: “I’ve done so many character roles these past three years that I’m feeling a bit like Chaney in that I’ve become a man of a thousand faces.”

"Something happens when your subconscious goes to work... That's why 'Sleep on it' is an adage."

"The American People are witnessing the greatest lie that is cleverly orchestrated by President Obama and his whole administration. President Obama feeds people poison, giving them the idea that they are entitled to take from the wealthier who have lived and worked in a democracy that understands that capitalism is the only truth that keeps a nation healthy ... a socialistic, Marxist teaching, and with it, he rapes this nation."

"If I do a scene with an actor who doesn't have much experience, I say, 'I tell you what we're going to do: You just listen to me, and then you respond. We don't have to do any acting.' And that's good advice because you shouldn't see the acting."

Membership

In 2000 Voight became involved with the Florida Holocaust Museum and worked very closely with then-Executive Director Larry Wasser (deceased 2003) and President John Loftus, famous U.S. Justice Department official, author and former prosecutor. Voight serves today as an advisory member of the organization's board.

Personality

Jon Voight models a unique voice and accent for each role.

Physical Characteristics: Voight's height is 6'2" (188 cm).

Quotes from others about the person

• “Voight is seen as a man who is intelligent enough to realize how desperate his situation is - because he has been caught not just in a physical trap, but also in a philosophical one.” - Roger Ebert, film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times
  
  “Voight, a serious actor, isn’t afraid to pull out the stops as a melodramatic villain.” - Roger Ebert

Connections

In 1962, Voight married actress Lauri Peters, who he had met when they both appeared in the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music. They divorced in 1967. Then, in 1971, he married actress Marcheline Bertrand. They separated in 1976, filed for divorce in 1978, and divorced in 1980.

Their children, James Haven (born May 11, 1973) and Angelina Jolie (born June 4, 1975), would go on to enter the film business as actors and producers. Voight was estranged from his children for several years, but they reconciled in 2007 after Bertrand's death.

Voight is a godfather of Skyler Shaye.

Father:

Elmer Voight

Mother:

Barbara Camp Voight

ex-spouse:

Lauri Peters

Lauri Peters (born Patricia Peterson; July 2, 1943) is an American actress, dancer, singer, drama teacher and author.

late spouse:

Marcheline Bertrand

Marcia Lynne "Marcheline" Bertrand (May 9, 1950 – January 27, 2007) was an American actress and humanitarian.

Son:

James Haven Voight

James Haven Voight (born May 11, 1973) is an American actor and producer.

Daughter:

Angelina Jolie

Born on June 4, 1975.

Brother:

Barry Voight

Barry Voight (born 1937) is an American geologist, volcanologist, author, and engineer.

Brother:

Chip Taylor

Chip Taylor (born March 21, 1940) is an American songwriter, noted for writing "Angel of the Morning" and "Wild Thing."

Goddaughter:

Skyler Shaye

Skyler Anna Shaye is an American actress. She is known for her role as Cloe in Bratz: The Movie and as Kylie in Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.