A Profile of Conservative Hollywood Actor Jon Voight

Although most people know him as the father of Angelina Jolie, Academy Award winner Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight is the rare Hollywood conservative who has earned enough political capital through his acting to speak his mind freely without liberal reprisal. Although very much a liberal in his younger days, Voigt said in a 2008 Washington Times op-ed that he regretted much of his early activism, calling it a "time of great distortion." In the 2008 presidential campaign, Voight was a staunch opponent of Barack Obama. After Obama became president, Voight has made regular appearances at national tea party events.

Jon Voight was born in Yonkers, New York on Dec. 29 1938 the oldest of Elmer and Barbara Kamp Voight's three boys. His father was of Czech descent as well as a professional golfer. His mother was of German lineage. He and his two brothers, musician James Wesley "Chip Taylor" Voight and geologist Barry Voight, were raised in a devoutly Catholic household. In 1956, Voight, who had expressed an interest in acting from an early age, graduated from Archbishop Stepinac High School, a Catholic boys' school in White Plains, NY. He then graduated from Catholic University in 1960, having already become a polished performer.

After serving briefly in the Army Reserves, Voight moved to New York City to act. In 1962, he met his wife, actress Lauri Peters while performing in the original Broadway production of "The Sound of Music." While a majority of his early work was on stage, he was able to land a few roles on TV, including several episodes of Gunsmoke, where he met actor Dustin Hoffman. In 1965, he became a theater sensation, and several small film roles followed. So did his divorce from Peters in 1968. A year later, his connection with Hoffman paid off in the form of Midnight Cowboy.

Midnight Cowboy stretched Voight's range and his faith. As the sexually confused Joe Buck, Voight played a Texas dishwasher whose dream is to live as a gigolo in New York City. In his quest to be supported by wealthy women, Buck fails miserably and eventually falls in with the crippled Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, a third-rate hustler played by Hoffman. The roles earned both men instant fame and Oscar nominations for "Best Actor," and the film, which had received an "X" rating, won for "Best Picture." Midnight Cowboy was a turning point in Voight's career. Roles in Catch-22 and Deliverance followed, as did stardom.

In 1971, Voight married actress and model Marcheline Bertrand, and the couple had two children, actor and screenwriter James Haven Voight and superstar actress Angelina Jolie Voight. Throughout the 1970s, Voight continued to build a reputation for versatility and range. He was cast in a number of box office successes, and in 1978, he paired with Jane Fonda in Coming Home, a film about a paraplegic Vietnam veteran. Fonda won an Oscar for Best Actress, and Voight won for Best Actor. The accolade didn't help his home-life, however, as he and Bertrand divorced the same year, after being separated for two years.

With two Academy Awards in his possession and a long career ahead of him, Voight made a commitment to only take roles that challenged his acting chops. He appeared in five films in the 1980s, Lookin to Get Out (1982), Table for Five (1983), Runaway Train (1985) -- which earned him his third Academy Award for Best Actor -- Desert Bloom (1986) and Eternity (1989). The small number of performances allowed him to dedicate plenty of time to charity work, which he greatly enjoyed. He appeared in many more films in the '90s, although many of them were in supporting roles, including an appearance in an episode of Seinfeld.

At the end of 1999, Voight had the pleasure of watching his daughter, Angelina, win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Girl, Interrupted. His thirst for good roles had not abated and more quality supporting parts came his way as he entered his 60s. In 2001, he appeared in Pearl Harbor, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (alongside Angelina), Zoolander and Uprising. Perhaps his most important role of the decade came that year in the character of sportscaster Howard Cosell in the film, Ali, which starred Will Smith. The role earned Voight his fourth Academy Award, but his first for a supporting role.

When Voight left Bertrand in 1976, it was just a year after Jolie's birth. During her formative years, Voight had little contact with his daughter. After she became an actress, the two struggled to have a meaningful relationship, and their attempt to work through their troubles on screen fell apart a year after Lara Croft was released. Jolie filed to have her father's surname legally dropped, prompting Voight to say his daughter had "serious mental problems." Jolie expressed fury at the comment, claiming that if anyone had taken it seriously, the comment could have resulted in the removal of her adopted children.

Over the next six years, the two didn't speak, but in 2008, thanks largely to the encouragement of her husband, Brad Pitt (who also had successfully reunited his first wife, Jennifer Aniston, with her estranged mother), Jolie called her father on Christmas. Over the course of the following year, with Pitt acting as mediator, Jolie and Voight began to repair their relationship. In February 2010, Voight, Jolie and Pitt were spotted in a water taxi as they headed down Venice's Grand Canal. In a subsequent interview, Voight gushed over his daughter, expressing how proud he was of her skills as a loving wife and mother.

In the late 2000s, Voight emerged as a prominent spokesman for the right, frequently making appearances at Tea Party events and on conservative news shows. In 2008, he campaigned actively for John McCain and Sarah Palin, and in 2009, he hosted a GOP fund-raiser, and said America was becoming "a weak nation" and that Obama was a "false prophet." In April 2010, he read a letter to the president on FOX News' Huckabee that sparked controversy by accusing him of his aggression and arrogance for his own agenda, against the will of the American people when he should be using his will and aggression against our enemies."

Despite ratcheting up his rhetoric after Obama took office, Voight continued to work in Hollywood, making supporting appearances in films like Transformers, Tropic Thunder and An American Carol. In 2008, he portrayed Jonas Hodges for the first time, and would reprise the role for five episodes in 2009 before being killed off. Another TV project and another film were in production in 2010.

Although Hollywood has moved sharply to the Left in recent years, Jon Voight serves as one of the very few superstars with a conservative political philosophy to remain unscathed by Tinseltown's dominant liberal ideology.