Jon Voight: Burt Reynolds, you were a true artist

hello America I'm Marc Levin this is life liberty and Levin with the great Jon Voigt thank you sir Marc great to see you it's a pleasure to see you well unfortunately your friend Burt Reynolds passed away yes I remember both you and this unbelievable movie deliverance mm-hmm what was he like what can I say about this passion fellow my friend Burt Reynolds Burt was uh you know he was a dynamo he was he was dangerous to me and when I was making deliverance I was always a little bit afraid if I had to get in the car with him because he was a stunt man you know and he always took us right to the edge you know and in some way he lived his life like that a little bit wait but he was a wonderful guy to be around he was such a joy and you know I wouldn't just talk to him as seconds did you Burt you know I know you're you were such a wonderful you're a true artist in every way you have the greatest love for your craft for your fellow peers and you know you and I had a wonderful relationship we had the greatest times very good talks and and we're going to miss your handsome face around and and I know you're with your buddies you're with Sammy Davis you was Dom DeLuise it was all these great guys Johnny Carson your friends are gonna meet you and you know I keep an eye on all these lovely ladies in heaven will ya god bless you rest in peace kid any story or stories oh yeah well I heard was he was a scallywag you know I we were talking about this word pantheon you know that the gods of our industry well he was one of those guys and the person and the figure that you put up there is the the Bandit you know no one ever have created a character like quite like that we all fell in love with the bad and he was a lot like that guy he was always teasing me when we were doing deliverance I'll tell this one little story we were going into areas that not a human being had walked for a long time and you know getting to our canoes and sometimes we'd go down cliffs and stuff you know and getting there early in the morning this whole crew and I remember one day we were going down this cliff face and you know on a rope but 35 feet or something like that and everybody else was coming down they were dropping the camera down this area and I looked up and then I see four chairs being dropped down for the actors so all of this virility what what out the window you see they're gonna take care of us like Hollywood now we were sitting on rocks and and and you know stomps and stuff like that by the river with our feet in the water and yet we had these chairs Hollywood was still there anyway so they put the chairs up no one said and then except Bert Bert sat in my chair and he sat there and you know couple of days in a row then it became four and sitting and and and I was saying to myself not John what do you accept said about it every this chairs for anybody we're sitting here on rocks we don't need the chairs you know and I went through all this stuff you know I couldn't figure out what he was doing and finally after 10 days I said to him Bert can I ask you a question and he says sitting in my chair yeah boy of course John what is it and I said you know we've been here we don't need anything went in the woods we're having this adventure and and yet the chairs come down you sit in my chair every day you've done it for ten days you said yeah I said why he said well John is quite simple when I sit in your chair I can see my name on my chair and he was waiting today's room to bring it up he had that joke in his pocket but anyway just like he was like that he was such a delight and did you keep up with him yes I were we were close I called him you know every every month or so may I ask you a question I don't know if people know this I think many do mm-hmm but I've noticed you have quite an affinity towards the state events Israel it's almost central yeah you're like why is that well this began this this story has a beginning my father was a golf professional in Scarsdale New York he had three boys we were one year apart the reason why he had this job at sunningdale Country Club was because these Jewish people visit Jewish club German Jews they came to this country wanted to play golf one to join one of the clubs and what weren't allowed in the clubs so so you know they didn't complain they went around raising the money to buy land and they built the club and because of their ingenuity and because of their flexibility and vision my dad had this job so I knew at a very early age the insanity of anti-semitism I remember when I in the forty so is one night to 38 in the 40s I remember seeing a Life magazine picture of a little boy behind barbed wire and I identified with that boy I said that could be me what are they doing to these people and for Oh that stayed with me all my life so I've felt a real responsibility in a certain sense to stand up against anti-semitism right and in that journey I've gotten very close to the Jewish people now there's another aspect to it and that is my father my father was a very poor boy he was eight years old when he caddied at this country club and he was very cute kid he had white blond hair they said call him whitey and he he would tell the story on himself he's a charming man my dad and a great sense of humor and he'd tell us this story he said you know how he would caddy an eight years old it was making more money than his dad was taking care of his family and three three siblings and at the 16th hole he would say you know he was and he would he had this wonderful way of he was a good actor my debt in some ways although if they put a camera on him he he what he became nervous and did other things but he had this way of being you know he said they said sixteenths hold this little boy would say you know it's my birthday today hello whitey is it and they wouldn't reach in that pocket the end of the day and give him a little extra money and this was important to him you know one day he said that it's my birthday today and the man said to him why he wasn't your birthday three weeks ago so he was caught see but but they didn't care that they understood what he was doing it even admired his his foots before a little kid you know and and they they kind of embraced this young man and they taught him many things my father this happened later on in my life I realized that my father had been when he was instructing somebody else I found out some of the things that he was given as instruction by these memberships they by this membership of the club he would give him words to say at the beginning of the day here's three words whitey and at the end of the day I want you to come back and put them in a sentence or something like that right just improving his vocabulary how old was he when he said 9 10 8 9 10 11 you know all the way up and he was fastened to this club they taught him how to behave at the table difference things matter since things like that you know as I realized as I got older I said hmm that's pretty interesting and it occurred to me when I was 14 I had it kind of an epiphany my father who was I have said he was an extraordinary fellow very charming man very poised full of fun loved children was a great father great storyteller and very principled guy two very strong morals you know but not never rigid playful but strong when he needed to be everybody admired this guy and when he was 16 this membership made him a pro at the club one of the pros when he was 18 they made him the head pro of Sunningdale Country Club a position which he's held until his passing when he was 63 years old and I heard to me when I was 14 I said you know something I've compared him to his siblings two sisters and a brother there were nothing like him he was so superior in every way not to demean them they were very nice people but they just didn't have the same qualities he had and the grace that he had and I said to myself you know something my dad was raised in the Jewish culture that's who he is so and this is stuck with you oh it's very moving when I talk about yeah and and so this idea you know it stayed with me and my friends have been extraordinary Jewish people all through my life but I and then I went through a crisis at a certain time in my life and I was looking at all religions I was raised Catholic and I have a great regard for the Catholic and what what it gave me and the teachings that and the schools that they have today very good they're another level in the public schools and you know the hospitals and all of this and the great people you know john paul ii who's part i played at one point and mother teresa was one of my heroes so I have great regard to the Catholic Church but I did a lot of investigating of all religions and I came to understand much of the Jewish history is a wonderful book by Paul Johnson history of the Jews it's a great book for races and and Johnson was that if tears in your eyes well I think I think righteousness brings emotion out of me I I think people who have who seek truth are those who I would you know seek to follow I hope to hope Ike I thought of one of those at the end of my days but anyway there's so many great people and and and so I've looked at this history of the Jewish people and at one point I said the greatest wonder of the world is Jewish literature all the different you know the rabbi's the great Einsteins of for the Jewish people across the years were rabbis they made commentary on this Bible that they had we have the just coming up almost at the present time with us Hasidic people when there was a need for something else in the Jewish world when people were the people in Europe this part of Central Europe were were bereft of the ability to to read all this literature then this fella came along called the Baal Shem Tov and he taught them songs he said you you simply need to be you know happy in your work follow this follow this behave in a certain way and here's some songs to remind you of of the truths of things and so right after the president and that's why I came to the the Jewish need about shem tov began a legacy that wound up in my backyard in in california the Habad and the and and I've made friends with these these fellows and they're a fun group really lots of fun and and they help people and I've danced on their telethon dance the Hasidic dance what they said and it became quite a deal so anyway if that's that's my story with my father is very fascinating and it explains why you go to Israel why you do what you do and when we come back Jon Voight I want to ask you another question you used to be a liberal how do we become a little oh yeah in that out I found that out and then you became a conservative yes I want to know how you became one and then how you became another yeah ladies and gentlemen don't forget each week you can watch me on Levin TV most of the week go to see our tv.com slash mark and sign up and join us see our tv.com slash mark or give us a call at 844 levin TV 844 levin TV

Channel: Fox News

Views: 299,266

Keywords: Fox News Channel, Fox News, News, entertainment, entertainment news, burt reynolds, burt reynolds funeral, jon voight, jon voight burt reynolds, celebrities, artist, mark levin, levin

Id: Xs_PmrOCSxk

Length: 14min 19sec (859 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 10 2018