The Only Main Actors Still Alive From 1969's Midnight Cowboy

This article contains discussions of sexual assault and mental health.

Released in 1969, based on the novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy, and directed by British New Wave legend John Schlesinger, "Midnight Cowboy" is a relatively infamous movie. The story of a con man and a young male sex worker — played respectively by Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight — making their way through dangerous circumstances in New York City is a harrowing one, and it's also one of the rare movies to bear an X-rating for its sexual content, which today translates to NC-17. (It's also pretty famous for Hoffman's now-iconic improvisation where he slaps the hood of a New York taxi and exclaims that he's "walkin' here," for what it's worth.)

The severe rating earned by "Midnight Cowboy" didn't hurt the film's legacy one bit — it's the only movie with an NC-17 rating to ever win Best Picture, which it won in 1970 (along with best director for Schlesinger and best adapted screenplay for Waldo Salt). The film, which was added to the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress in 1994, also boasts a pretty impressive cast ... but nowadays, a few of them have passed away, including Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, and Barnard Hughes. So which "Midnight Cowboy" actors are still around? From Oscar winners to venerable character actors, here are the actors who starred in "Midnight Cowboy" that are still alive — several of whom were part of the acclaimed 2022 documentary "Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy."

Alongside Jon Voight's Joe Buck, the main character of "Midnight Cowboy" is Dustin Hoffman's character Enrico Salvatore "Rico" Rizzo, who often just goes by "Ratso." A con man with a noticeable limp, Rico is a shrewd, cunning man who's always looking for a way to make a quick dollar, and when he sees how naïve Joe is as a young hustler in New York City, Rico takes him under his wing ... though that's not without clear financial incentive for him along the way. Throughout the movie, Rico has an extremely nasty cough and his condition just gets worse and worse, and as the story comes to a close, it's clear that he doesn't have long. Despite his raging fever, Ratso insists that he and Joe board a bus to Florida together, but Ratso dies during the trip, leaving Joe to close his eyes and mourn his closest friend, who, in his dying moments, asks to be called Rico instead of Tatso.

As for Hoffman, he barely needs an introduction; two years before "Midnight Cowboy," he starred in "The Graduate," and both movies ultimately earned him Oscar nominations. Throughout his career, Hoffman has appeared in huge films like "Kramer v. Kramer" and "Rain Man" (which both won him Oscars), "Tootsie," "All the President's Men," and popcorn fare like "Meet the Fockers" and the "Kung-Fu Panda" movies. Hoffman, obviously, is still working steadily today; if you haven't seen his performance in "Midnight Cowboy," it's certainly worth a watch.

Dustin Hoffman's con man Rico might drive most of the plot of "Midnight Cowboy" thanks to his dubious "mentorship" of Joe Buck, but Jon Voight's Joe is, unquestionably, the movie's protagonist. We first meet Joe as he takes a bus from Texas to New York to start a new life, but his attempt to make it as a sex worker doesn't really pan out at first (the first woman he sleeps with is offended when he asks for payment, and in the end, he's the one who ponies up some cash). Even with Rico's help, Joe's life is still pretty bad; he has to sell his own blood for money and pawns his beloved portable radio when times get tough.

So what has Voight — who, along with Hoffman, was nominated for an Oscar for his role in "Midnight Cowboy" — been doing since starring in this infamous movie? In 1978, Voight won his own Academy Award for best actor for his role as a Vietnam veteran in "Coming Home," and he was nominated for other films like "Runaway Train" in 1985 and "Ali" in 2001 — besides his Oscar-nominated performance, he's also appeared in movies like "Heat," "Deliverance," the first "Mission: Impossible" film, and the "National Treasure" movies and TV shows like  "24." Most recently, Voight had a leading role on the popular Showtime series "Ray Donovan" as Mickey Donovan, father to the titular Ray played by Liev Schreiber.

At one point in "Midnight Cowboy," Joe ingests a cocktail of different drugs and is unaware of what it will do, leading him to wildly hallucinate while at an art event that's clearly supposed to invoke Andy Warhol and his specific, bright style of pop art. While at the event — and while Rico's loud coughing disturbs the revelers — Joe meets a wealthy woman named Shirley, played by Brenda Vaccaro, who seeks Joe's services. Though the drugs interfere with his job for a while, Joe ultimately sleeps with Shirley for money, at which point she starts recommending him to her equally wealthy friends ... leading Joe to believe that he might finally be succeeding as a sex worker.

Vaccaro was already an established Broadway actress by the time she appeared in "Midnight Cowboy," and throughout her career, she's earned three Tony nominations. Her role as Shirley scored her a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress — she later won in that same category for 1975's "Once is Not Enough," which also garnered an Oscar nod), and in the years that followed, she kept working steadily on television shows like "Murder, She Wrote," "The Golden Girls" (for which she was nominated for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series), "Friends" (as mother to Matt LeBlanc's Joey Tribbiani), and "Ally McBeal." Most recently, she appeared on the "Sex and the City" spin-off "And Just Like That," in Quentin Tarantino's 2019 movie "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," and in the 2022 documentary about "Midnight Cowboy" along with Jon Voight.

Though she's only seen in Joe's flashbacks throughout "Midnight Cowboy," Annie, portrayed by Jennifer Salt, is vital to the overall story — because she explains where Joe came from and who he is at the start of the film. In these flashbacks, we watch as Joe and Annie form what seems to be a romantic relationship, but it's has seriously unsettling overtones, especially in memories where it appears as if both Joe and Annie are violently sexually assaulted by a group of men. It's made clear, at a certain point, that Annie's mental health deteriorates rapidly, and the last time she's seen is as she enters an ambulance, with her destination not specified — though it's possible she's being taken to a psychiatric facility.

As for Salt, she went on to work on movies like "The Wedding Party" with Brian DePalma and "Play It Again, Sam" with Woody Allen alongside a long-running role on the ABC sitcom "Soap," which ran from 1977 to 1981. Salt is now retired from acting and works as a screenwriter; in that capacity, she's written on multiple Ryan Murphy-led projects like "Nip/Tuck," "American Horror Story," and "Ratched," and she also wrote 2010 Julia Roberts film "Eat Pray Love," also with Murphy.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

Early into his tenure as a sex worker in New York City, Joe encounters a young man — who's never named — who asks to pay Joe $25 for a sex act in a movie theater. The two engage while watching the movie in a cheap theater, but when it's over, it turns out that the high school student, who ends up dry-heaving over a toilet in the bathroom, doesn't actually have $25 to give to Joe. Angry, Joe threatens him, but ultimately decides not to hurt him and just walks away from the bad situation entirely. That high school student in question is played by character actor Bob Balaban in his first-ever credit film role.

Even if you don't know Balaban by name, you've probably seen him at one point or another — he's got a long list of film and television credits, including huge projects like "Gosford Park," "Capote," "Seinfeld," "Broad City," and many, many more. Balaban has two major collaborators who pretty much always cast him in their films to boot. First is Christopher Guest, who has featured the wonderfully deadpan performer in comedies like "Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show," "A Mighty Wind," "For Your Consideration," and Mascots. Second, and perhaps more notably, is Wes Anderson, who's found roles for Balaban in everything from "Moonrise Kingdom" to "The Grand Budapest Hotel" to the director's most recent project "Asteroid City." Balaban also appeared in "Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy" with Jon Voight and Brenda Vaccaro, and clearly, he's not hurting for roles after getting his start in "Midnight Cowboy."