Deliverance to play Lewis Medlock. 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 attached to the project included Robert Redford, Henry Fonda, George C. Scott and Warren Beatty. The film is infamous for cutting costs by not insuring the production and having the actors perform their own stunts (most notably, Jon Voight climbed the cliff himself). In one scene, the stunt coordinator decided that a scene showing a canoe with a dummy of Burt Reynolds in it looked phony; he said it looked
Jon Voight of the decade. In 1989 Voight starred in and helped write "Eternity," which dealt with a television reporter's efforts to uncover corruption. He made his first acting debut into television movies, acting in 1991's "Chernobyl: The Final Warning", followed by "The Last of his Tribe", in 1992. He followed with 1992's "The Rainbow Warrior" for ABC, the story of the ill-fated Greenpeace ship sunk by French operatives in the Auckland Harbour. For the remainder of the decade, Voight would alternate between feature films and television movies, including a starring role in the 1993 miniseries "Return to Lonesome Dove", a continuation