Film star Jon Voight told millions of TV viewers about his daughter's problems as he appealed to the 27-year-old actress to get help.

Voight, 63, wants the Tomb Raider star to seek psychiatric care for her depression, which has worsened since the break-up of her marriage to actor Billy Bob Thornton.

He said he had tried to help his daughter but that her manager had turned her against him.

Jolie and Thornton, 46, spent months seeking permission to adopt a Cambodian-born boy and to allow him into the US.

But only months after baby Maddox was given permission to live in the US, Jolie and Thornton announced they had separated.

Two years ago the actress admitted that she cut herself when she was depressed. On the US show Access Hollywood Voight said yesterday: "Once in New York when I tried to get her help, she said, 'You can't help me You can't help my pain.'

Voight also said that his daughter's brief marriage - her second and Thornton's fifth - was doomed from the start