VOIGHT, Jon

(b. 29 December 1938 in Yonkers, New York), actor who became a star in his first major film, Midnight Cowboy (1969), which expressed the angst and social rebellion that permeated much of American society at the end of the 1960s.

Voight was the second son of Elmer Voight, a professional golfer at the Sunningdale Golf Club in Westchester County, and Barbara Camp. As a child Voight had a talent for doing impersonations and learned much from his father, who greatly enjoyed participating in routines, telling fairy stories and creating spy scenarios. To this day Voight's genius is inextricably tied up with character roles rather than starring ones. Voight was mentored in dramatics by Father Bernard McMahon at Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York, from which he graduated in 1956. One of Voight's roles during his high school years was that of an eighty-year-old German playboy. His success revealed his enormous potential as an actor.

Voight began college in 1956 at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Once again a priestly inter-vention, this time from Father Gilbert Hartke, saw to it that Voight focused on drama. Upon graduating with a B.F.A. in 1960, Voight was determined to pursue a career in acting. He went to New York City and studied for the next four years with Stanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Parental support allowed Voight the time and resources to concentrate on learning how to act.

During the 1960s Voight had a varied apprenticeship on the stage and screen. He had a small part in the hugely successful Broadway production of The Sound of Music, then a major role in Arthur Miller's View from the Bridge. In 1967 Voight received a Theatre World Award for a starring role in That Summer—That Fall, Frank Gilroy's adaptation of Phèdre. Although the play only ran for twelve performances, Voight's performance was well received by critics.

Voight was always eager to try new roles. He played the lead in Romeo and Juliet (1966) and Ariel in The Tempest (1966), appeared in seven television shows (including the Westerns Gunsmoke and Cimarron Strip), then found himself in an educational television production of a Howard Pinter play called The Dwarfs (1967).

In 1966 Voight read the screenplay for The Midnight Cowboy, by James Leo Herlihy. He was desperate to win the role of Joe Buck, the handsome, boyish drifter from Texas who heads for New York convinced that his cowboy persona will transform him into a high-class gigolo. He campaigned energetically with the film's producer, Jerome Hellman, and its director, John Schlesinger, to win the role.

When United Artists released Midnight Cowboy in 1969, the movie enjoyed spectacular box-office success despite nude scenes and other bold content that caused it to receive an X rating. This was eventually downgraded to R. The story follows the unglamorous, dismal, and often hopeless odyssey of two homeless hobos who somehow become close companions. The film critic Tim Dirks sees the story as a modern version of John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men. Midnight Cowboy, for some, was a morality tale fitfully placed in an ugly and depersonalized metropolis. The film critic Leonard Maltin argues that Voight's role of the male prostitute and hustler helped define the sensitive, as opposed to macho, male character for American movie audiences in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

Voight's six-foot, three-inch build, plus the muscle he acquired as he trained for the Joe Buck role, allowed him to adroitly carry off the appearance of a Texan peacock. Clad in a fringed leather jacket, a flamboyant Stetson hat, and shiny cowboy boots, Buck is full of fanciful dreams as he departs Texas and heads north to make his fortune.

Voight earned only $17,000 for his Joe Buck role (costar Dustin Hoffman reportedly earned $700,000), but critics uniformly applauded his performance. The film earned three Oscars, one each for best adapted screenplay, best director, and best picture. Voight was nominated for the best actor Oscar and received a New York Film Critic's Award and a National Society of Film Critics Award, both for best actor.

Voight's post–Midnight Cowboy career entails his selection of a series of roles that reprise the character Joe Buck. Searching for a denouement and hoping to find meaning or salvation in a cluttered and uneven cultural landscape, Voight's characters are seldom one-dimensional heroic figures. In Catch 22 (1970) Voight played Milo Minderbinder, a scheming provisions officer who makes a fortune by selling "chocolate-covered cotton." Two years later Voight was the sensitive, cerebral man caught unawares and exposed in John Boorman's harrowing outdoor adventure Deliverance (1972). To carry off the role of Ed Gentry, Voight mastered a series of stunts, including riding a canoe through whitewater, climbing a slippery cliff, and shooting a bow and arrow. Vincent Canby, in his review, praises Voight's portrayal of a "thoughtful, self-satisfied businessman who rather surprisingly meets the challenge of the wilderness." In Conrack (1974) Voight played a school-teacher who deeply affects African-American pupils on an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina. Then, with Coming Home (1978), a drama about the effects of the Vietnam War, Voight, once again the sensitive and compassionate man, transforms from driven warrior to paralyzed soldier. The film secured for Voight a 1979 Oscar for best actor and awards from the New York Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics, and the Cannes Film Festival.

In 1985 Voight's portrayal of a brutal escaped convict in Runaway Train earned him his third Academy Award nomination. In a 1992 Home Box Office (HBO) special, Last of His Tribe, Voight explored the issue of land rights for Native Americans. Other especially interesting Voight performances have been an Irish policeman in The General (1998) and the demonic football coach in Varsity Blues (1999). In Pearl Harbor (2001) Voight's depiction of President Franklin D. Roosevelt was mesmerizing. He followed with a priceless, pitch-perfect rendering of broadcaster Howard Cosell in Ali (2001), which earned him a fourth Academy Award nomination.

Voight's 1962 marriage to the actor Lauri Peters ended in divorce in 1967. His 1971 marriage to the actor Marche-line Bertrand also ended in divorce. He had two children with Bertrand. One is the film director James Haven Voight; the other is the actress Angelina Jolie.

Voight's intriguing depiction of Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy was much more than artful caricature. The challenged and flawed character of Buck, desperately trying to make sense of a topsy-turvy world, epitomized the changing moral landscape of the 1960s.

Current Biography (1974) contains a full and richly textured profile of Voight. The World Almanac Who's Who of Film (1987), Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia (1995), and Earl Blackwell's Celebrity Register (1998) have short entries on Voight. Vincent Canby's review of Deliverance is in the New York Times (31 July 1972). The same writer discusses Hollywood Vietnam movies in the New York Times (19 Feb. 1978). Tim Dirks's review of Midnight Cowboy is extensive—see <www.filmsite.org> and <www.greatestfilms.org>.

Scott A. G. M. Crawford