Jon Voight - Personal Life

Personal Life

Voight was born in Yonkers, New York, the son of Barbara (née Kamp; 1910–1995) and Elmer Voight (né Voytka; 1909–1973), a professional golfer. He has two brothers, Barry Voight (born 1937), a former volcanologist at Pennsylvania State University, and Wesley Voight (born March 21,1940), known as Chip Taylor, a singer-songwriter who penned "Wild Thing" and "Angel of the Morning". Voight's paternal grandfather was a Slovak immigrant from Košice, then under Austro-Hungarian rule, while his maternal grandfather and his maternal grandmother's parents were immigrants from Germany.

Voight was raised as a Catholic, and attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York, where he first took an interest in acting, playing the comedic role of Count Pepi Le Loup in the school's annual musical, The Song of Norway. Following his graduation in 1956, he enrolled at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he majored in art and graduated with a B.A. in 1960. After graduation, Voight moved to New York City, where he pursued an acting career.

In 1962, Voight married actress Lauri Peters, whom he met when they both appeared in the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music. They divorced in 1967 after five years of marriage. He married actress Marcheline Bertrand in 1971. 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, Haven as an actor and producer, and Jolie as a movie star in her own right. Voight was estranged from his children for several years, but they reconciled in 2007 after Bertrand's death.