Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography Read Free Page A

American dream.”
    When Jon Voight dreamed, he dreamed big. When he was just three years old, he saw himself becoming a great painter. It helped that his parents, Elmer and Barbara, dreamed big, too. On the eve of America’s entrance into the First World War in 1917, the sports-crazy eight-year-old Elmer had gathered up all his youthful courage, marched into a golf club in Yonkers, just north of New York City, and asked for work as a caddie. He happened to be in the right place at the right time. Yonkers was the site of the first golf course in the United States—in 1888 Scottish immigrant John Reid had founded the Saint Andrews golf club—and in 1913, the local Jewish community had joined together to open their own course, which they named Sunningdale, after the historic course outside of London.
    Not only was Elmer, the son of a Slovakian miner, given work as a caddie, but members also took the personable youngster under their wing, teaching him correct English and the proper use of a knife and fork, as well as the mysteries of the great game itself. Elmer—universally known as “Whitey”—flourished, and but for a back injury would have been, according to Jon Voight, “one of the greats.” Instead he ended up as the clubpro, a dapper, ebullient man, always ready with a funny story or a gag. The woman he married in 1936, Barbara Kamp, the daughter of a German immigrant, was also a keen golfer who knew how to enjoy life. At some point she founded the You’re a Nut Like Me society, dedicated to overcoming everyday stresses through humor and imagination. “She was the most fun-loving person I ever knew in my life,” recalled her longtime friend Susan Krak.
    With three boys born in five years—Barry in 1937, Jon on December 29, 1938, and finally James in 1942—Barbara had to run a strict household, ruling her boisterous brood with a touch of Prussian discipline. Every Sunday she took the three boys to the local Catholic church, but at times it was like herding cats. As Jon’s kid brother, James, recalls: “We were usually the last ones there. We would have to go and sit up by the altar.”
    Just as well. As Jon recalls, “As a kid I was always up to no good.” When he was not dreaming of becoming a great artist, he spent his days climbing the highest trees he could find.
    The real world of the imagination began at bedtime when Elmer arrived home. For a time he convinced his sons that he was an undercover FBI agent rather than a golf pro. As they sat on their bunk beds in their home off Lockwood Avenue, the curtain would go up on their father’s nightly theatrical performance, Elmer spinning endless tales that he would make up on the spot.
    “My father was a wonderful storyteller,” recalls Jon Voight. “Those were magical experiences. I still have vivid memories of those times. And I think those experiences had a lasting influence on me. He would tell us stories about the Mississippi River and the riverboats. I think that’s why I became an actor, to be like my dad. I was so thrilled to listen to him tell these tales.” His father’s imagination and his mother’s chutzpah opened up a world of possibilities for their sons. As James recalls, “My dad would wake me and my brothers up in the morning and say: ‘Boys, the world is your oyster.’ Mom and Dad were encouraging us to hop our own fences.” By the time he was six, Jon had already hopped one fence, having swapped thoughts of painting professionally for those of a career in the movies. Later, he dallied with the notion of becoming a professional comedian.
    Whatever the future held for Jon and his brothers, in the Voight household there was one overriding passion: golf. All three boys took up thesport, Jon and James excelling. Indeed, James’s later stage name, Chip Taylor, came about because for several Sundays in a row he had holed out from off the green. On one occasion Jon and Gene Borek, the assistant pro at Sunningdale, played in a