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Jon Voight: Academy Award
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It appeared that Voight's career had lost some momentum, with a shortage of good roles available. In 1985... he hooked up with Russian writer and director Andrei Konchalovsky to play the role of escaped con Manny Manheim in the existential action film Runaway Train. The script was based on a story by Akira Kurosawa, and paired Voight with Eric Roberts as a fellow escapee. For his ferocious, somewhat over-the-top performance, Voight received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and won the Golden Globe's award for Best Actor. Roberts was also honored for his performance, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. While it was critically acclaimed, the film failed to attract a large audience.
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Brosnan joined Kathleen Turner, Armand Assante, Joe Torre, Heidi Klum and Jon Voight. The latter was honored with the Children at Heart Award for helping chairman Nancy Spielberg (Steven's sister) raise $1 million for the charity, which helps to relocate kids from the former Soviet Union to Israel.
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Andrei Konchalovsky's relentless thriller "Runaway Train" (1985), featuring a screenplay by legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, marked a turning point in Voight's career. Having seen and admired the director's "Siberiade" at Cannes in 1979, he was instrumental in getting Konchalovsky to work in the West and earned his third Best Actor Oscar nomination as the brutal and frightening escaped convict Manny, a far cry from the sensitive, nice-guy parts of the past. His face distorted by make-up, he went way out on the edge with his non-stop risk-taking, creating an unforgettable, over-the-top character that was a precursor for work to come. However, after a solid performance as the insensitive, alcoholic father of "Desert Bloom" (1986), Voight, who had always been a very selective actor, took what amounted to an eight-year hiatus from features and brought his talents to the small screen, working on projects in which he had particular interest, such as portraying Dr. Robert Gale, who flew to the Soviet Union to aid those affected by radiation poisoning, in "Chernobyl: The Final Warning" (TNT, 1991). Long known as a champion of indigenous people, particularly the Hopi Indians, he gave an award-winning performance in "The Last of His Tribe" (HBO, 1992), as real-life anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, discoverer of the last surviving member of a small Indian tribe (Graham Greene) in pre-WWI California.
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