
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 20, 1991                   TAG: 9104200470
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: S-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SUSAN KING LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VOIGHT WOULD LIKE CABLE MOVIE ON CHERNOBYL TO INSPIRE OTHERS

"It has been a difficult journey for us," Jon Voight was saying. "We have learned so much along the way. We don't know what we have on film, but everyone is trying to do their very best. We are raising a lot of questions."

Voight, who won the best actor Oscar for 1978's "Coming Home," was hot and exhausted. He had spent that sweltering morning jogging up and down a street in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles for a scene in his latest movie "Chernobyl: The Final Warning," a docudrama premiering Monday on TNT.

"Chernobyl," based on the book "Final Warning: The Legacy of Chernobyl," by bone marrow specialist Dr. Robert Gale and Thomas Hauser, chronicles Gale's efforts to help Soviet medical teams save the lives of the victims of the largest nuclear catastrophe since World War II. Voight portrays Gale, who is based at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine.

The Soviets allowed the production to film at hospitals and even at a nuclear power plant. Voight was shocked at the outdated technology in the hospitals. "The X-ray machines are many years old and the tiles on the floor are broken and it is dusty. And yet the doctors are so lovely and caring. All the time you are seeing something that shocks you and simultaneously, you are getting an experience of tremendous human warmth and caring."

Voight found the condition of the nuclear power plant even more harrowing. "You see holes in the walls in an area which is supposed to be kept free of contaminations. There was a hole in the roof and pigeons were flying through."

The most frightening observation Voight said he made while filming in the plant was that the people who work there are in the dark about the potential danger of nuclear power.

"They are human beings," he said. "And they sit next to this energy. If it's not cared for properly it can interrupt into explosions that can mean destruction and great suffering for many people."

"There are almost no words to describe the fears that are in everyone's hearts, and yet all of our children have that fear. We are responsible. We can not throw that responsibility to the next generation."

He said he hopes "Final Warning" will inspire viewers to do something to save their world. "We are just little folks trying to our best and I am rooting for us to bring forth a decent, responsible piece," Voight said. "It won't be the be all and end all, but it may wake us up a bit."

by CNB