Scotsman obituary: Ned Beatty, American actor known for Deliverance and Superman

The Deliverance movie ends with the character of Jon Voights waking up from a nightmare reminiscent of how his dream canoe trip with his pals in the Appalachians got nasty, leaving a friend and two hillbillies dead. Many viewers may also have had nightmares after seeing the film. Some may choose to remember the sweet little scene from Dueling Banjos in which one of the campers performs a spontaneous duet with an empty-faced local youth, who has learning difficulties, but clearly had no difficulty in learn to choose a tune. Viewers might prefer to try and forget about the film’s most disturbing scene, in which rookie film actor and piggy Ned Beatty is asked to squeal like a pig while hillbillies humiliate and abuse him.

The moment shocked audiences when the film was released in 1972. It is still one of the most shocking scenes in the history of mainstream cinema. Specifically, this is the seventh most shocking scene of all time according to Movie-list.com, in front of Carrie’s grave scene and behind the Reservoir Dogs folk song combo.

Deliverance, in which four town men are threatened by locals, was shot on a tight budget, with the actors directing many of their own stunt scenes. Beatty claimed he almost drowned at one point. The rape scene was largely improvised, with Beatty taking credit for the famous Pig-Line Scream, although there are various accounts of how this happened. And while Beatty was keen to take credit for the dialogue, he wasn’t too happy when people approached him on the street and asked him to repeat the ominous noises or, worse yet, just see him.

Director John Boorman had already chosen another actor for the role of Bobby, a rather smug, condescending character and anything but a natural adventurer, but he changed his mind after meeting Beatty. Beatty earned his living for years in the provincial theater, but nevertheless had a high opinion of himself. His meeting with Boorman was his great luck, but he spent much of his time flirting with the wife of Boorman’s assistant. I was more of the heel and I think that’s what John Boorman liked, Beatty recalls. He said he thought I was the rudest person he had ever met.

Deliverance was a huge critical and commercial success, propelling Burt Reynolds to stardom, while Beatty carved out a highly successful career as a character actor, playing Lex Luthors obsequious comedic sidekick Otis in the 1978 movie Superman. and its sequel and winning an Oscar nomination for his performance as the boss of a television station in Network. His role lasted only about six minutes, but included a long, rambling speech, in which his character lectured Howard Beale, the TV presenter played by Peter Finch in There Is No America. There is no democracy. There’s only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. These are the nations of the world today … The world is a business … Our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see a vast and ecumenical holding, for which all men will work for a common profit.

Not only had this role been assigned to another actor, director Sidney Lumet had already shot it with someone else, but Lumet was not happy with the outcome and hired Beatty, who had little time to learn his great speech. I worked on Network for a day and got an Oscar nomination for it, he said.

Moving away from Hollywood in the 1980s, Beatty came to Scotland for the comedy Restless Natives, which follows the misadventures of two young anti-heroes who wear joke shop masks and wield tourist buses. Beatty was an American cop, on vacation in Scotland, who made a point of finding them. It was a more innocent time and the Trainspotting movie was still a decade away.

Son of a traveling salesman, Ned Thomas Beatty was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1937. He was not a relative of Warren Beatty, although Ned claimed that Warren was his illegitimate uncle. Apparently Warren was not amused. Beatty sang in barber shop quartets and in the local church choir and had ambitions to become a priest early on. He won a choral scholarship to the University of Transylvania in Lexington, Kentucky, but dropped out, sold furniture for a time, and performed with regional theater companies before breaking up with Deliverance.

Beatty could play drama and comedy. His smile lent itself to the role of an idiot and something a little more sinister. He was particularly good at annoying or unpleasant characters. Corrupt lawyers have become something of a specialty.

He befriended Deliverance co-star Burt Reynolds, who went on to develop an image of a successful action hero and became one of Hollywood’s biggest box office stars in the late 1970s. Beatty again worked with him on several films in the 1970s and 1980s, including White Lightning, playing a corrupt local sheriff, and WW and the Dixie Dancekings, playing a country singer. Beatty also played a major role in Robert Altman’s classic 1975 ensemble drama Nashville, playing a lewd lawyer and political organizer rather than a singer, alongside Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Shelley Duvall and Lily Tomlin. . He played Irish tenor Josef Locke in the 1991 film Hear My Song and was the infamous judge Roy Bean in the television adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s western novel Streets of Laredo.

Other movie credits include All the Presidents Men, the thriller The Big Easy (another corrupt cop), Shooter, and Charlie Wilsons War. Also in demand as a voice actor, Beatty lent her vocal talents to evil bear Lotso in Toy Story 3 and voiced Tortoise John in Rango.

Beatty has married four times. The first three unions ended in divorce.

He is survived by his fourth wife and eight children from his previous marriages.

If you would like to submit an obituary, or have a suggestion on a topic, contact [email protected]

A message from the editor

Thank you for reading this article. We depend on your support more than ever, as the change in consumption habits caused by the coronavirus is having an impact on our advertisers. If you haven’t already, consider supporting our trusted and verified journalism by purchasing a digital subscription. Until the end of June it’s just 1 for the first two months of subscription less than 2p per day when you use the code ONEPOUNDTRIAL at checkout.