DATE: Sunday, October 5, 1997               TAG: 9710030166

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E18  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   72 lines

SEASONED ACTOR ENJOYS VARIETY

JON VOIGHT, THE ``Midnight Cowboy'' of movie memory, has two new movies opening this week and another by the end of the year. This comes after four movies last year - an unprecedented volume of work from an actor who, after his sudden leap to stardom in 1969 surprised the movie industry by saying ``No'' to many sure-fire hits.

``I say `Yes' more often now,'' Voight said as he sat for an interview at New York's Regency Hotel this week. He hits 60 on Dec. 29. ``I've just come to realize that work is the most fun - and that I should just get out there and try a wide range of characters. I'm restless when I'm not working.''

He's currently on screen as a wizened, blind desert codger in Oliver Stone's ``U-Turn,'' co-starring Sean Penn, Billy Bob Thornton and Jennifer Lopez. He's virtually unrecognizable in the film.

He laughs heartily at the prospect that he's fooled the audience. ``I was in the makeup chair for hours each of the several days I worked in this film,'' he said. ``I kept urging the makeup guy to lay it on thick. I said `Let's give him bad skin, maybe a fungus. And he's been out in the desert sun too much, so let's give him blisters.' ''

Next week, he opens in ``Most Wanted'' as a crazed military leader with a redneck accent opposite Keenen Ivory Wayans. ``Accents come easy to me,'' he said. ``My grandfather was Czechoslovakian and, as a kid, I used to imitate him. My father used to gather my brother and I at bedtime and tell us wild, elaborate stories, using lots of different accents. I picked it all up from him.''

He says he did ``Most Wanted'' because he liked Wayans' TV work. ``My son, Jamie, used to get me to look at `In Living Color' every week and I became really impressed with Keenen's ability to do different characters.''

The idea of losing himself in the characters has been a part of Voight's non-Hollywood, non-glamour image from the very beginning of his movie career. Making the trek from Yonkers, N.Y., to Broadway, he was in his early 20s when he sang ``I am 16, Going on 17'' in the original Broadway production of ``The Sound of Music,'' starring Mary Martin.

He became an instant movie star in 1969 when he got the role of the pathetic hustler Joe Buck in John Schlesinger's ``Midnight Cowboy.'' The movie made stars out of Voight and Dustin Hoffman, both of whom were nominated for the Academy Award (the Oscar went to John Wayne for ``True Grit'').

``Having that kind of fame thrown at me overnight was something difficult to take,'' Voight remembered. ``I think I handled it better than some but I remember I never wanted the attention. I never knew how to respond to people who asked me for autographs. I always thought they had the wrong guy. Handlers told me to watch Burt Reynolds. They said he knew how to do it.''

On that first Oscar night, he claims he expected he and Hoffman to split the ``Midnight Cowboy'' vote and that Wayne would win. ``We were both young fellas and I had said, ahead of time, that I would be glad if Wayne won. It was a political time, though, and Wayne was in favor of the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, some political feelings got into the voting. I, of course, was very much against the Vietnam War, but I was backstage and I was the first to congratulate Wayne when he came offstage.''

Voight's own Oscar night came in 1978 when he won for playing a crippled `Nam veteran in ``Coming Home.'' His co-star, Jane Fonda, also won.

A handsome blond, he shunned pretty-boy leads in favor of ``relevant'' character studies, which probably hurt his ``stardom'' quotient. He received a third Oscar nomination for ``Runaway Train'' and fervently remembers the Russian director urging him, ``Jon, go there. Don't be afraid.''

It has been a motto for his career. In one year alone, he starred in ``Mission: Impossible,'' ``Heat,'' ``Rosewood'' and ``Anaconda,'' the latter featuring an outlandish accent which befuddled the critics. It ended with him being swallowed by a snake. ``It was way over the top,'' he laughed. ``I was a little surprised at how successful it was.''

His third 1997 film, set to open in December, will be Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of John Grisham's novel ``The Rainmaker.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Oscar-winner Jon Voight stars in "Most Wanted"...

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