A chubby, sympathetic character player (even when playing bad guys), Ned Beatty had performed in more than seventy plays when John Boorman spotted him on Broadway in "The Great White Hope" and signed him for "Deliverance" (1972). As the glib, likable salesman Bobby Trippe, who falls victim to sodomy at the hands of a demonic mountain vagrant, Beatty delivered a stunning performance in what still may be his most memorable role to date.

In the movies that followed (including "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" 1972 and "The Last American Hero" 1973), Beatty continued to shine, particularly in