Famed Stepinac High School Alumni Jon Voight & Alan Alda Share Screen Time in Ray Donovan Episode

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - Jan. 4, 2019 - PRLog -- Recently, famed Stepinac High School alumni actors Alan Alda and Jon Voight shared screen time in an episode of the sixth season of Ray Donovan, the hit showtime series.  According to a Google search, this may well have been the first time that the legendary actors in their long careers appeared together, though in separate scenes, in either a TV show, motion picture or play.

In the ninth episode, "Dream On," multiple Emmy and Golden Globe winner Alda plays a psychiatrist in scenes with Ray Donovan's lead actor, Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Liev Schreiber.  Academy Award winner Voight has been playing the role of the patriarch of the troubled Donovan family since the series started.

Alda and Voight do not act together in any of the scenes of the episode which is currently streaming and is also available On Demand on Showtime. But, nine years ago, the venerable actors were on stage together when they returned to their alma mater to honor their teacher/mentor, Rev. Bernie McMahon, who taught dramatics and literature at the all-boys Stepinac High School from 1951 to 1971.

In April 2009, Father McMahon was presented with Stepinac's Major Bowes Award, bestowed on individuals whose superb talents have inspired students to pursue careers in the theater arts. Fittingly, the ceremony was held on the Major Bowes Auditorium stage where Alda and Voight performed as aspiring young actors but never together as they graduated from Stepinac four years apart (Alda, Class of '52) and (Voight, Class of '56)

During his tenure, Father McMahon moderated the then known Drama Club (since renamed the Stepinac Theatre) and directed several of its productions, chaired the English Department and oversaw the Shepherd Yearbook and the Phoenix Literary Magazine.

Alda, who lived in Elmsford when he attended Stepinac, not only performed in Stepinac Drama Club productions but he co-wrote the books for two original school musicals.  He went on to become an Academy-Award nominated, Emmy-award and Golden Globe winning actor, director and screenwriter. After his landmark television series, M*A*S*H, Alda explored his lifelong interest in science as host of PBS's Scientific American Frontiers.

A native of Yonkers, Voight starred in the Drama Club's production of Song of Norway. He has a long, distinguished career as a leading man and character actor who won an Academy Award as Best Actor in Coming Home and starred in other landmark films, Midnight Cowboy and Deliverance.   He is also a Golden Globe winner and Emmy-nominated actor.

Father McMahon earned a master's degree in English from the University of Minnesota, a Doctorate from St. John's University and a Fulbright Fellowship to study at Cambridge University. Ordained a priest in 1948, Father McMahon has been a life-long teacher and campus chaplain and has officiated at the weddings of countless students and the baptisms of their children.

Reflecting on his approach to teaching, Father McMahon said: "My job was not to impose but to elicit what my students had inside of them. What I tried to do was create a sense of joy. If they have that joy, they will find the real person in the character they are presenting."

About Archbishop Stepinac High School

The mission of Archbishop Stepinac High School is to offer young men of the Archdiocese of New York a highly competitive academic and extracurricular program that will prepare them for college and leadership roles. The faculty and staff accomplish these objectives by pursuing excellence and creating a supportive, disciplined atmosphere with a strong sense of camaraderie and Christian values that is unique to the Stepinac experience. For more information, visit https://stepinac.org/