Ned Beatty - # 267

Ned Beatty, Acclaimed Character Actor in ‘Deliverance,’ ‘Network’ and ‘Homicide: Life on the Street,’ Dies at 83

The Oscar-nominated Kentucky native also was memorable in 'Nashville,' 'All the President's Men' and two Superman films.

 

He was number 267 on the list.

Ned Beatty, who made a sparkling feature film debut in Deliverance before turning in noteworthy efforts in Nashville, Network and Homicide: Life on the Street as one of the most respected character actors of his time, has died. He was 83.

Beatty died Sunday of natural causes at his Los Angeles home, his daughter Blossom Beatty told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Kentucky native also portrayed Lily Tomlin’s good ol’ boy hustler-lawyer husband in Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975), was a slippery Miami district attorney in Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men (1976) and elicited laughs as Lex Luthor’s (Gene Hackman) bumbling sidekick Otis in Superman (1978) and its 1980 sequel.

On television, Beatty was at his best as Det. Stanley “The Big Man” Bolander on NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street and as the chaplain assigned to an American private (Martin Sheen) in his final hours on the somber 1974 NBC telefilm The Execution of Private Slovik.

Beatty had an excellent basso profundo singing voice, and his goal as a teenager was to have a career in the musical theater. One of his rare performances as a leading man came as the great Irish tenor Josef Locke in Hear My Song (1991).

The harrowing survival saga Deliverance (1972), directed by John Boorman, starred Beatty, Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight and Ronny Cox as buddies from Atlanta who take a trip to hillbilly country to canoe down a river.

Beatty said he doubted he was going to get a part in the picture when he sat down with Boorman, his assistant and their wives for lunch in New York. A veteran of the local theater, he had never been in a feature film.

“There was a very attractive lady [the wife of Boorman’s assistant] sitting next to me to my left,” he recalled in a 1992 interview with the CBC, “and I spent the whole time giving her my best shot … I was terribly married [but still] terribly flirtatious.

“I was quite the heel, and I think that’s what John Boorman liked. He said he thought I was the rudest person he had ever met.”

Deliverance, of course, has become infamous for its uncut 10-minute male rape sequence (“Squeal like a pig!”) in which Beatty, as pudgy businessman Bobby Trippe, is the victim. It’s a scene that viewers have difficulty stomaching.

Years later, The New York Times called upon Beatty to write an article about rape for the newspaper’s op-ed section. “The bottom line [of his piece] and the bad news,” he said, “was that a man would rather be a rapist than have to identify with the victim of a rape.”

In other Reynolds starrers, Betty portrayed the lawbreaking sheriff J.C. Connors in White Lightning (1973) and Gator (1976) and a country music singer-songwriter in W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975). The two also worked together in Stroker Ace (1983), Switching Channels (1988) and on a 1989 episode of ABC’s B.L. Stryker.

 

In Network (1977), directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Paddy Chayefsky, Beatty spent just one day on the set and was seen onscreen for less than six minutes. Yet few could argue that he deserved his lone Oscar nomination for his commanding performance as Arthur Jensen, the bombastic bigwig of UBS’ parent conglomerate who convinces anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) to see things his way.

“You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it!” Jensen bellows in a dimly lit boardroom.

Beatty, who often played Southern yokels and was at ease doing comedy as well as drama, never seemed to harbor any regrets about not having more leading-man roles. “They’re more trouble than they’re worth,” he once told People magazine. “I feel sorry for people in a star position — it’s unnatural.”

Ned Beatty was born on July 6, 1937, in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of a traveling salesman who pitched a system of fire hydrants to officials in small towns. He said his voice broke when he was 10, and he sung in barbershop quartets and at Baptist revivals and weddings as a teenager.

Beatty graduated from Eastern High School in 1955 and then earned a scholarship to attend Transylvania University, a Christian Private school, in Lexington, Kentucky; while in college, he made ends meet by working as a butcher.

When he was about 19, he got a singing part in the play Wilderness Road. “It was an outdoor play about the two counties in Kentucky in the Civil War — one had a lot of slave owners, and the other was very abolitionist,” he told the Chicago Tribute in 1992. “Because my voice was so loud, they gave me some [speaking] lines.”

The experience got him hooked on acting, and in 1957 he joined the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. (Ernest Borgnine, Hume Cronyn and Larry Linville also performed there early in their careers), moving about the country and performing.

That was followed by a stint in Washington with the Arena Stage Company, where he appeared in the original production of The Great White Hope, starring James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander. He eventually made his Broadway debut in the play after it came to New York in 1968.

Around this time, Beatty also landed a job as a bank robber in an FBI training film.

“About a year later, I started getting arrested,” he told Backstage in 2001. “If I went into a small town somewhere, I’d get arrested. I’m serious. That’s the way cops work. They’re used to seeing pictures of bad guys. If they see you and they know that you’re a bad guy, they arrest you. So that went on for a little while, until I started getting known as a film actor.”

Beatty sure was known after Deliverance. He went on to play a thief turned marshal in John Huston’s The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), a rube salesman in Silver Streak (1976), the father of a terminally ill child in Promises in the Dark (1979), the head of an American spy organization in Hopscotch (1980) and the father of an unlikely football hero in Rudy (1993).

His film résumé also included John Cassavetes’ Mikey and Nicky (1976), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Gray Lady Down (1978), Steven Spielberg’s 1941 (1979), Huston’s Wise Blood (1979), Radioland Murders (1994), He Got Game (1998), Cookie’s Fortune (1999) with Altman again, Just Cause (1995), Spring Forward (1999), Thunderpants (2002) and Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), and he was the voice of the deceivingly cuddly Lotso in Toy Story 3 (2010).

Beatty also starred as an ex-Marine in charge of a D.C. community center on the short-lived 1977-78 CBS sitcom Szysznyk and played John Goodman’s father in a recurring role on ABC’s Roseanne.

The actor returned to the stage and Broadway in 2003 to portray Big Daddy in a revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, winning a Drama Desk Award, then spent more than a year touring in a production of Showboat.

Survivors include his fourth wife, Sandy, and children Blossom, Doug, twins Charles and Lennis, Wally, Jon, Thomas and Dorothy.

Filmography

Film

Year       Films      Role       Notes

1972      Deliverance        Bobby Trippe    

1972      The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean     Tector Crites      

1973      The Thief Who Came to Dinner Deams

1973      The Last American Hero                Hackel  

1973      White Lightning                Sheriff J.C. Connors        

1975      W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings 'Country Bull' Jenkins     

1975      Nashville              Delbert Reese   

1976      All the President's Men Martin Dardis    

1976      The Big Bus         Scotty 'Shorty Scotty'     

1976      Network              Arthur Jensen    Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

1976      Silver Streak       FBI Agent Bob Stevens / Bob Sweet         

1976      Mikey and Nicky               Kinney

1977      Exorcist II: The Heretic   Edwards              

1977      Alambrista!         Anglo Coyote    

1978      Gray Lady Down               Mickey

1978      The Great Bank Hoax      Julius Taggart    

1978      Superman           Otis Berg             

1979      Promises in the Dark       Bud Koenig        

1979      Wise Blood         Hoover Shoates               

1979      1941      Ward Douglas   

1980      The American Success Company                Mr. Elliott           

1980      Hopscotch           Myerson             

1980      Superman II        Otis Berg             

1981      The Incredible Shrinking Woman               Dan Beame        

1982      The Toy                Sydney Morehouse        

1982      The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez     Lynch Mob Leader          

1983      Stroker Ace         Clyde Torkle      

1983      Touched               Herbie  

1985      Restless Natives                Bender

1986      Back to School   Dean David Martin         

1987      The Big Easy       Jack Kellom        

1987      The Fourth Protocol        General Pavel Borisov    

1987      Rolling Vengeance           'Tiny' Doyle        

1987      The Trouble with Spies   Harry Lewis        

1988      Shadows in the Storm    Thelonious Pitt

1988      Switching Channels         Roy Ridnitz         

1988      Go Toward the Light       George

1988      The Unholy         Lieutenant Stern              

1988      Midnight Crossing            Ellis       

1988      After the Rain    Kozen   

1988      Purple People Eater        Grandpa              

1989      Time Trackers    Harry Orth          

1989      Physical Evidence             James Nicks       

1989      Tennessee Nights            Charlie Kiefer    

1989      Chattahoochee Dr. Harwood      

1989      Ministry of Vengeance   Reverend Bloor

1990      Going Under       Admiral Malice

1990      Big Bad John       Charlie Mitchelle             

1990      Angel Square      Officer 'Ozzie' O'Driscoll               

1990      A Cry in the Wild               Pilot Jake Holcomb         

1990      Repossessed      Ernest Weller    

1990      Fat Monroe        'Fat' Monroe      Short

1990      Captain America               Sam Kolawetz   

1991      Hear My Song    Josef Locke         Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture

1992      Blind Vision         Sergeant Logan

1992      Prelude to a Kiss               Dr. Boyle             

1993      Warren Oates: Across the Border              Narrator               Documentary

1993      Rudy      Daniel Ruettiger, Sr.       

1993      Ed and His Dead Mother               Uncle Benny      

1994      Replikator           Inspector Victor Valiant

1994      Outlaws: The Legend of O.B. Taggart       Unknown           

1994      Radioland Murders          General Walt Whalen    

1995      The Affair            Colonel Banning               

1995      Just Cause           McNair

1997      The Curse of Inferno       'Moles' Huddenel            

1998      He Got Game     Warden Wyatt  

1999      Cookie's Fortune              Lester Boyle       

1999      Life         Dexter Wilkins  

1999      Spring Forward 'Murph'               

2002      This Beautiful Life             Bum      

2002      Thunderpants    General Ed Sheppard     

2003      Where the Red Fern Grows          Sheriff  

2005      Sweet Land         Harmo

2007      Shooter                Senator Charles F. Meachum      

2007      The Walker         Jack Delorean   

2007      Charlie Wilson's War       Clarence 'Doc' Long        

2009      In the Electric Mist           'Twinky' LeMoyne           

2010      The Killer Inside Me         Chester Conway              

2010      Toy Story 3          Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear       Voice

IGN Award for Favorite Villain

Nominated—IGN Movie Award for Best Ensemble Cast

Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Villain

2011      Rango   Tortoise John     Voice

2011      Rampart               Hartshorn           

2013      The Big Ask         Old Man Carl     

2013      Baggage Claim   Mr. Donaldson Final film role

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1972      Footsteps            Frank Powell      Television film

1973      The Waltons       Curtis Norton     Episode: "The Bicycle"

1973      Kojak     Det. Dan Corrigan            Episode: "The Marcus-Nelson Murders"

1973      Dying Room Only              Tom King             Television film

1974      The Rockford Files            Leon Fielding      Episodes: "Profit and Loss Part 1"

"Profit and Loss Part 2"

1974      The Execution of Private Slovik   Father Stafford Television film

1975      Lucas Tanner      Harold Ogden    Episode: "A Touch of Bribery"

1975      The Deadly Tower            Allan Crum          Television film

1975      M*A*S*H            Colonel Hollister               Episode: "Dear Peggy"

1975      Gunsmoke          Karp       Episode: "The Hiders"

1975      Petrocelli             Gage      Episode: "Death Ride"

1975      Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan       Ollie Thompson                Television film

1975      The Rookies        Frank Forest       Episode: "Shadow of a Man"

1976      Hunter Lt. Kluba               Unaired pilot for 1977 series

1976      Hawaii Five-O    Keith Caldwell    Episode: "Oldest Profession - Latest Price"

1976      NBC Special Treat             Big Henry             Episode: "Big Henry and the Polka Dot Kid"

1977      Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected

(United Kingdom title Twist in the Tale) McClaskey           Episode: "The Final Chapter"

1977      Tail Gunner Joe Sylvester              Television film

1977      The Streets of San Francisco        Eddie Boggs        Episode: "Hang Tough"

1977      Delvecchio          Wakefield            Episode: "The Madness Within" parts 1 and 2

1977      Nashville 99        Randy Blair         Episode: "Sing Me a Song to Die By"

1977      Lucan    Larry MacElwaine             Television film

1977      Visions Anglo Coyote / Pinky      2 episodes

1977–1978          Szysznyk              Nick Szysznyk     15 episodes

1978      A Question of Love          Dwayne Stabler                 Television film

1979      Friendly Fire       Gene Mullen      Nominated – Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Special

1980      Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones Congressman Leo Ryan Television film

1981      The Violation of Sarah McDavid Dr. Walter Keys                 Television film

1981      Splendor in the Grass     Ace Stamper       Television film

1982      A Woman Called Golda Senator Durward              Television film

1982      Faerie Tale Theatre          The King               Episode: "Rumpelstiltskin"

1983      Kentucky Woman             Luke Telford       Television film

1984      The Last Days of Pompeii              Diomed                Miniseries

1984      The Haunting of Barney Palmer Cole Scholar       Television film

1984      Murder, She Wrote         Chief Roy Gunderson     Episode: "The Murder Of Sherlock Holmes"

1984      Celebrity              Otto Leo               Miniseries

1985      Alfred Hitchcock Presents             Larry Broome     Episode: "Pilot"; segment: "Incident in a Small Jail"

1985      Robert Kennedy and His Times   J. Edgar Hoover                 Miniseries

1985      Konrad Mr. Thomas        Television film

1985      Hostage Flight   Art Hofstadter   Television film

1986      Highway to Heaven         Bill Cassidy / Willy The Waver / Melvin Rich          2 episodes

1987      Dolly      John Pacer          1 episode

1988      Go Toward the Light       George Television film

1989      Spy         Thomas Ludlow                 Television film

1989–1994          Roseanne            Ed Conner           6 episodes

1989      Last Train Home                Cornelius van Horne        Nominated – Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special

1990      It's Garry Shandling's Show          Himself                 Episode: "The Wedding Show"

1990      The Tragedy of Flight 103: The Inside Story           Edward C. Acker               Television film

1992      Road to Avonlea               Wally Higgins     Episode: "The Calamitous Courting of Hetty King"

1992      Trial: The Price of Passion             Scoot Shepard   Television film

1992      Illusions                George Willoughby          Television film

1993      The Golden Palace           Tad Hollingsworth            Episode: "Tad"

1993      The Boys              Herbert Francis "Bert" Greenblatt             6 episodes

1993–1995          Homicide: Life on the Street        Stanley Bolander              33 episodes

1995      Streets of Laredo              Judge Roy Bean                 Miniseries

1996      Crazy Horse        Dr. McGillicuddy               Television film

1996      Gulliver's Travels              Farmer Grultrud               "Part 1"

1999      Hard Time: Hostage Hotel             Tony      Television film

2000      The Wilgus Stories           Fat Monroe        Television film

2000      Homicide: The Movie      Stanley Bolander              Television film

2001      I Was a Rat          Mudduck             Miniseries

2002      Roughing It         Slade     Television film

2004      The Wool Cap    Gigot's father     Television film

2007      CSI: Crime Scene Investigation    Dr. David Lowry                Episode: "Sweet Jane"

2008      Law & Order       Judge    Episode: "Zero"

2013      Go On   Coach Spence    Episode: "Go Deep"

Video games

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1994      Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine       Sheriff Francis Wompler                Appears in live action video sequences

2010      Toy Story 3: The Video Game      Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear       Voice

Theater

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1968      The Great White Hope   Various                 Replacement

2004      Cat on a Hot Tin Roof      'Big Daddy'          Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play