43 and 1/3 years ago Laurence Olivier, recipient of an AMPAS Life Achievement Award, delivered one of the most movingly written and eloquently phrased thank you speeches in Hollywood history. So moving that at the 6:03 mark Jon Voight all but doubled over and was close to tears…one of the greatest “oh, wow!” reactions to a speech in Oscar history.
The 41 year-old Voight, who won a Best Actor Oscar later that evening for his performance as a paraplegic in Coming Home, was clearly open to all kinds of currents and vibrations at that moment, and yet 30 years later Voight had become a staunch rightie and a serious hater of Barack Obama. What a long, strange trip of a life.
That said, Voight, fiend that he’s become, has always been a great actor. I loved his grizzled fixer character in Heat.
