Ned Beatty, who received an Oscar nomination for his role in “Network” during a prolific acting career that spanned more than four decades and delivered a memorably harrowing performance as the weekend outdoor man on “Deliverance” by the backwoodsmen in “Deliverance.” attacked died at his home in Los Angeles on Sunday. He was 83.
His death was confirmed by his manager Deborah Miller, who did not give the cause.
The beefy Mr. Beatty was not known as the leading man. In more than 150 film and television projects from 1972 onwards, he was almost always cast in supporting roles. But it was closely tied to some of Hollywood’s most enduring films.
His films include “All the President’s Men” (1976), “Superman” (1978) and its first sequel, the inspirational sports drama “Rudy” (1993) and the Rodney Dangerfield comedy “Back to School” (1986).
He was also a familiar face on television. From 1993 to 1995 he played Stanley Bolander, the detective known as “Big Man” in the series “Homicide: Life on the Street”. He was also in several episodes of “Roseanne,” Roseanne Barr’s hit sitcom, as Ed. seen Conner, the cheerful father of John Goodman’s character Dan, and in episodes of Law & Order, The Rockford Files, and other shows.
In 1976, Mr. Beatty was cast by director Sidney Lumet and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky on Network, the critically acclaimed satire about a television network’s battle for ratings in a tube-obsessed nation. His character, mustached network manager Arthur Jensen, gave a memorable monologue that earned Mr. Beatty an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
In the scene, Mr. Beatty’s character Howard Beale (Peter Finch), the unstable presenter who just had an on-air crisis, calls into the boardroom and draws the curtains. With the camera pointed at Mr. Beatty, who is standing at the far end of a conference table lined with bank lamps, he unleashes a wild self-talk. Mr. Beale has a lot to learn about the business world, he preaches.
“You have interfered with the elemental forces of nature, Mr. Beale,” says Mr. Beatty in a roaring voice. “And you will atone.”
Mr. Beatty then modulates his presentation and asks in a normal speaking voice: “Can I get through to you?”
In the book “Mad as Hell: The Making of ‘Network’ and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies” (2014) by Dave Itzkoff, a culture reporter for the New York Times, Mr. Beatty is quoted as saying: that he Intimidated by the length of the speech but excited by the character and the movie.
To get the filmmakers to give him the role, Mr. Beatty said, he told them that he had another film offer for more money.
“I lied like a snake,” he added. “I think they liked the fact that I was at least trying to be smart. I’ve done something that might be in your dictionary. “
Mr. Beatty made his film debut in Deliverance, the 1972 adaptation of James Dickey’s novel about four friends whose canoe trip in rural Georgia is disastrous. Stripped in white underpants, his character Bobby is forced by a hillbilly to “squeak like a pig” before he is raped.
The line would go down in film family.
“’Squeak like a pig.’ How many times have this been shouted, said, or whispered to me since? ”Mr. Beatty wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times in 1989 with the provocative headline,“ Suppose Men Feared Rape ”.
Mr. Beatty did not distance himself from the scene.
“I suppose if someone (invariably a man) yells this at me, I should duck my head and look embarrassed to be recognized as the actor who suffered this shame,” he wrote. “But I’m just proud to be part of this story that director John Boorman made a classic. I think Bill McKinney (who portrayed the attacker) and I played the ‘rape’ scene as well as it could be played. “
Ned Thomas Beatty was born on July 6, 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky, to Charles and Margaret (Lennis) Beatty. He attended Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky on a music scholarship before starting his acting career.
He spent much of the early part of his career in regional theater, including eight years at the Arena Stage in Washington. In a 2003 interview, he told The Times that at the beginning of his career he had an average of 13 to 15 shows a year on stage and spent up to 300 days performing.
Mr. Beatty’s survivors include his fourth wife, Sandra Johnson. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.
Mr. Beatty played Big Daddy, the plantation owner, the patriarch of a troubled Southern family, in the Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” which also starred Jason Patric and Ashley Judd. He had previously played the same role in the London production of The Revival for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award.
Mr Beatty honestly judged his co-stars, saying that Broadway relied too much on celebrities and pushed them into challenging roles for which they did not have the acting skills.
“In the theater you want to go from here to there, you want something to be about,” he said. “Stage actors learn how to do it. Movie actors often don’t even think about it. They do what the director asks them to do and they never give information about their performance – call it what you want – consistently, objectively. “
Although best known as a dramatic actor, Mr. Beatty also gave notable performances in several comedic roles.
In “Superman” (1978) he played Otis, the clumsy rogue of the villain Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), who is involved in Luther’s interception of nuclear warheads, but is especially noticeable for his strange ignorance. Two years later he repeated the role in “Superman II”.
In 1986 he asserted himself to Rodney Dangerfield as the exuberant and unscrupulous Dean Martin of the fictional Grand Lakes University in “Back to School”. When he offers to join Thornton Melon (Mr. Dangerfield), the owner of a chain of large clothing stores, in exchange for donating a building, the business school director contradicts the quid pro quo.
“But I want to say in all fairness to Mr. Melon,” replies Mr. Beatty’s character, “that was a really big check.”
Mr. Beatty played many other small but significant roles, including the voice of Lotso, a teddy bear who turned bad, in Toy Story 3 (2010). In “Rudy”, the 1993 film about a University of Notre Dame soccer player who forms the team, he played the small but important role of Daniel Rüttiger, the working father of the title character. When he first steps into the stadium, the moment overwhelms him.
“That”, he says, “is the most beautiful sight these eyes have ever seen.”
Jordan Allen contributed to the coverage.
