Ned Beatty, the indelible character actor whose first film role as an genial vacationer brutally raped by a backwoodsman in 1972′s “Deliverance” launched him on a long, prolific and accomplished career, has died. He was 83.
Beatty’s manager, Deborah Miller, said Beatty died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles encompassed by friends and loved ones.
After years in regional theater, Beatty was cast in “Deliverance” as Bobby Trippe, the happy-go-lucky member of a male river-boating party terrorized by backwoods thugs. The scene where Trippe is brutalized became the most memorable in the movie and set up Beatty as an actor whose name moviegoers might not have known however whose face they generally perceived.
“For people like me, there’s a lot of ‘I know you! I know you! What have I seen you in?’” Beatty remarked without rancor in 1992.
Beatty got just a single Oscar nomination, as supporting actor for his role as corporate leader Arthur Jensen in 1976′s “Network,” yet he added to probably the most famous motion pictures of his time and worked continually, his credits including in excess of 150 films and TV shows.
He was similarly memorable as Otis, the idiot henchman of villainous Lex Luther in the initial two Christopher Reeve “Superman” movies and as the racist sheriff in “White Lightning.” Other films included “All The President’s Men,” “The Front Page,” “Nashville,” and “The Big Easy.” In a 1977 interview, he had clarified why he favored being a supporting actor.
“Stars never want to throw the audience a curveball, but my great joy is throwing curveballs,” he said. “Being a star cuts down on your effectiveness as an actor because you become an identifiable part of a product and somewhat predictable. You have to mind your P’s and Q’s and nurture your fans. But I like to surprise the audience, to do the unexpected.”
He landed a rare leading role in the Irish film “Hear My Song” in 1991. The genuine story of incredible Irish tenor Josef Locke, who vanished at the height of a brilliant career, it was all around inspected however to a great extent inconspicuous in the United States. Between movie, Beatty worked often in TV and theater. He had recurring roles in “Roseanne” as John Goodman’s dad and as a detective on “Homicide: Life on the Streets.”
On Broadway he won critical praise (and a Drama Desk Award) for his portrayal of Big Daddy in a revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” a job he had first played as a 21-year-old in a stock company production. He made controversy, be that as it may, when he was cited in The New York Times on the abilities of his young co-stars, Ashley Judd and Jason Patric.
“Ashley is a sweetie,” he said, “and yet she doesn’t have a lot of tools.” Of Patric, he remarked: “He’s gotten better all the time, but his is a different journey.” His more recent movies included “Toy Story 3”in 2010 and two releases from 2013, “The Big Ask” and “Baggage Claim.” He retired soon after.
Ned Thomas Beatty was born in 1937 in Louisville, Ky., and brought up in Lexington, where he joined the Protestant Disciples of Christ Christian Church. “It was the theater I attended as a kid,” he told The Associated Press in 1992. “It was where people got down to their truest emotions and talked about things they didn’t talk about in everyday life. … The preaching was very often theatrical.” For a period he considered turning into a cleric, yet altered his perspective after he was projected in a high school production of “Harvey.”
He spent 10 summers at the Barter Theater in Abingdom, Virginia, and eight years at the Arena Stage Company in Washington, D.C. At the Arena Stage, he showed up in Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” and featured in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” Then his life changed always when he took a train to New York to try out for chief John Boorman for the part of Bobby Trippe. Boorman revealed to him the job was projected, yet adjusted his perspective in the wake of seeing Beatty tryout. Beatty, who wedded Sandra Johnson in 1999, had eight kids from three past marriages.