Jack Nicholson was considered for the role of Ed, while both Donald Sutherland and Charlton Heston turned down the role of Lewis. Other actors who were considered for the film included Robert Redford, Henry Fonda, George C. Scott and Warren Beatty.
The film is remembered for two sequences especially: one of "duelling banjos" in which Drew and a local boy (Billy Redden) conjure up an impromptu duet between banjo and guitar, and an infamous scene where Bobby is sexually assaulted and ordered to "squeal like a pig".
Turned down Bruce Willis' role in Pulp Fiction (1994) to write and star in F.T.W. (1994). Other movies he is alleged to have turned down include 48 Hrs. (1982), Platoon (1986), Top Gun (1986) and Tombstone (1993).
While filming the white water canoeing scene, Ned Beatty was thrown overboard and was sucked under by a whirlpool. A production assistant dove in to save him, but he didn't surface for thirty seconds.
Co-star Burt Reynolds and Beatty struck up a friendship, and Ned was then cast by Burt in several other films together, including White Lightning (1973), W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975), and the abysmal Stroker Ace (1983).
"He was not someone I could be around. He was just not good for me in any way," Field shared of Reynolds. "And he had somehow invented in his rethinking of everything that I was more important to him than he had thought, but I wasn't. He just wanted to have the thing he didn't have.
Jack Nicholson was considered for the role of Ed, while both Donald Sutherland and Charlton Heston turned down the role of Lewis. Other actors who were considered for the film included Robert Redford, Henry Fonda, George C. Scott and Warren Beatty.
The banjo kid, real name Lonnie in the film, was played by Billy Redden who was 15 years old at the time of filming. Now Billy is 66 years old and he left the world of Hollywood behind.
In the original novel, just as in the film, there is no clear evidence about what happened to Drew. There is a wound on Drew's head which could be a bullet graze (this is what Lewis says) or could be from a bump on a rock. It's most likely he was NOT shot by anyone.
Rourke's face has been completely changed by plastic surgery. Gone are the days when The Los Angeles Times defined him as “a young Hollywood lion, an actor with the melancholic intensity of Marlon Brando [and] the electricity of James Dean.”
How many surgeries has Mickey Rourke had on his face?
While some sources claimed that he underwent countless operations, Rourke debunked these rumors, revealing that he only had six surgeries on his face. He recounted having a broken nose twice while boxing, which necessitated five surgeries. The sixth surgery was for his damaged cheekbone.
What is the significance of the banjo scene in Deliverance?
For Appalachian readers or viewers like me, the emotional consequence has been an unshakable shame. The banjo boy scene in Deliverance establishes the narrative's resonating themes of ability, adaptability, and manhood.
Ed manages to kill the hillbilly, whose dead body is tied down with weights and tossed into the river by Ed, Lewis, and Bobby to ensure it will never be found.
Some facts about the scene are that Redden did not know how to play the banjo, so another teenager was his hand double in the song "Dueling Banjos" while in the soundtrack, Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell were the musicians performing the song.
Billy Redden, who played the “Banjo Boy” in the movie, was just 15 when it was filmed in North Georgia in 1972. Redden lived in Clayton, Georgia, at the time and was handpicked by director John Boorman for the role.
Lightman happened to visit the Deliverance crew on-location not long after Reynolds' accident. “I slid down a 40′ waterfall the other day,” Reynolds told Lightman. “It looked simple enough, but I lit right on my tailbone, on a submerged rock, and bounced about five feet in the air. Man, did that hurt.
What happens in the squeal like a pig scene in Deliverance?
This is, of course, the legendary “squeal like a pig” sequence in John Boorman's Deliverance (1972), in which Beatty's Bobby Trippe is forced to strip, humiliated and sodomised at gunpoint by a pair of leering rednecks, while his friends look on, powerless and appalled.
The Deliverance movie banjo scene is also iconic, where Ronny Cox's Drew plays "Dueling Banjos" with a local boy (Billy Redden). The adventure is set in Georgia and was fittingly shot on location in Rabun County, Georgia.
What happened to the toothless guy in Deliverance?
Herbert Coward, known for his “Toothless Man” role in the movie “Deliverance,” died Wednesday in a crash on a western North Carolina highway, according to authorities. He was 85. The crash happened Wednesday afternoon as Coward and Bertha Brooks, 78, left a doctor's appointment, North Carolina Highway Patrol Sgt.
Following the “Gunsmoke” star's death, Field did not attend his funeral, but did release a statement. “There are times in your life that are so indelible, they never fade away. They stay alive, even 40 years later,” the “Amazing Spider-Man” actress told Page Six at the time.
Why didn't Burt Reynolds go to the Oscars with Sally Field?
“He really was not a nice guy around me then,” reveals the actress, now 77. In 1980 ahead of the 52nd Academy Awards ceremony, she says, Reynolds “was not going to go” as her date. There had been signs Reynolds was not supportive of her career-changing titular performance in Norma Rae.
