When the movie Midnight Cowboy was being filmed in Big Spring I did a daily radio program on the shooting. I interviewed the lead character, Jon Voight, several times. I was impressed with his friendliness and his willingness to cooperate with members of the media who interviewed him.
He was extremely nice to everybody. He played the part of Joe Buck, a small town guy who decided to seek his fortune in New York City. I hung around the various shooting locations during the two weeks the film crew was in town and did interviews with the director, John Schlesinger and others involved with the movie.
At the time I was a correspondent for NBC Radio’s Monitor, a weekend series that covered interesting things that were going on around the country. When Midnight Cowboy won the Os- car for best picture in 1969, I called the director of Monitor, Gordon Fraser and told him I had all these interviews with people who worked on the film. He said, “Send them up.” So the following weekend after the Oscars were announced, Monitor carried several of the interviews.
About six months later I decided to start a daily statewide radio program. My very first program featured an interview with Jon Voight. It has been interesting to see his career just zoom. He’s done some 70 movies and won a best actor Oscar for the movie Coming Home.
I was talking to my wife the other day and told her the 10,000th broadcast of my radio program was coming up. She said, “You ought to do something special for that program.” I decided to see if I could do another interview with Jon Voight and air it on February 7, the date of my 10,000th program.
Through several emails and telephone calls I was able to get hold of Jon Voight and do another interview with him. All his fame and accolades have not changed him a bit. He was as friendly and cordial when I interviewed him the other day, as he was when I interviewed him nearly 40 years ago.
Would you believe he actually thanked me for helping launch his career. His exact words were: “Tumbleweed, you and I are brothers. We both started way back when I was in Big Spring with Midnight Cowboy and you came along and interviewed all of us and you did such an amazing job for us and I really think you were a part of the launching of my career. It was such a pleasure to know you and to be back in touch with you and congratulate you on your 10,000th broadcast of THE SOUND OF TEXAS. You’ve made a lot of people happy, me among them. God bless you.”
Folks, I can’t express how much those words mean to me. Jon Voight is spending a lot of time these days going to VA hospitals and visiting members of the military who were wounded in the war.
He told me he knew that his role of Joe Buck would be a life- changing experience for him. He had done some stage work off- Broadway and a couple of independent films, but this was his first big movie.