Deliverance Deliverance Deliverance is a 1972 American thriller film produced and directed by John Boorman, and starring Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox, with the latter two making their feature film debuts. The film is based on the 1970 novel of the same name by author James Dickey, a celebrated poet who has a small role in the film as the sheriff, and who wrote the screenplay (uncredited). The film was a critical success, earning three Oscar nominations and five Golden Globe Award nominations. Widely acclaimed as a landmark picture, the film is noted for a music scene
Ned Beatty attended but did not graduate. In 1956, he made his stage debut at age 19, appearing in "Wilderness Road", an outdoor-historical pageant located in Berea, Kentucky. During his first ten years of theater, he worked at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia, the State Theatre of Virginia. Returning to Kentucky, he worked in the Louisville area through the mid-1960s, at the Clarksville Little Theater (Indiana) and the newly founded Actors Theater of Louisville. His time at the latter included a run as Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman" in 1966. In 1972, Beatty made his film debut as Bobby