| Ned Beatty  AKA Ned Thomas Beatty
Born: 6-Jul-1937
Birthplace: Louisville, KY
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Deliverance Ned Beatty is a chubby, cherubic character actor who rarely gets the girl, but almost always has the audience's sympathy, even when he plays bad guys. Raised in a religious family, he first planned on becoming a minister. He sang in the church choir, and sang with a barber shop quartet to earn extra money for his dirt poor Kentucky family. His singing earned him a college scholarship, and he became an actor almost by default when he was in the choir for a song-and-dance review, and the director asked him to take a tiny acting part -- not because of any innate talent, but just because Beatty had a booming voice that could be heard in the back rows. To his surprise, Beatty liked giving life to his lines, and it was not long after that when he dropped out of college to become an actor.
Working day jobs to support himself and his family, Beatty went from small parts in local plays to regional productions. He worked his way to Broadway in his early 30s, joining the cast of The Great White Hope, first with James Earl Jones and later with Yaphet Kotto. When moviemaker John Boorman saw the play, he thought Beatty would be perfect as the buggered insurance salesman in Deliverence with Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, and Ronny Cox. Rarely has any actor had a more memorable first role, but when shown on commercial television the film is often edited so Beatty's character is only ridiculed by the hillbillies. Incidentally, Beatty's second wife was actress Belinda Beatty, who played Voight's wife in Deliverence.
For decades, Beatty has been a familiar character actor in movies, sometimes appearing in up to five films in a year, though his pace has slowed in recent years. Among his more impressive movie roles, he was Lily Tomlin's fundraising husband in Nashville, Gene Hackman's bumbling sidekick Otis in Superman, the TV CEO even more insane than his newscaster in Network with Peter Finch, a corrupt cop in The Big Easy with Dennis Quaid, the reporter who dug up Nixon's Mexican money-laundering in All the President's Men with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, shrimpy football player Sean Astin's dad in the inspirational Rudy, a parks department philosopher in Spring Forward with Liev Schreiber, a village elder and cold-hearted banker in Sweet Land with Alan Cumming, and in perhaps his best performance, he played the tax-evading tenor in the Irish independent film Hear My Song.
In addition to numerous TV movies and guest star turns, he played the slovenly Detective Stanley Bolander in early seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street. He was featured in a pair of quickly-cancelled sitcoms, as a retired Marine who works as a playground supervisor on Szysznyk, and as Christopher Meloni's grumpy neighbor on The Boys. Beatty also had a recurring role as John Goodman's father on Roseanne.
He suffers from bipolar disorder, but unlike most manic depressives he is a well-trained actor with decades of work feigning feelings. Beatty says he can glide through a stage performance or a day in front of the cameras, even at the depths or heights of his mood swings, and only his closest friends can sense something is wrong.
Fifty years after his change of career, Beatty sang again, recording a CD of Christian music, In the Beginning was the Word. He also sang, quite pleasantly, in Hear My Song.
After being asked many, many times whether they were related, Beatty once joked to a reporter that Warren Beatty was his "illegitimate uncle." The comment has been repeated many times by many people who take it seriously, including occasional articles in mainstream newspapers, but the two Beattys are not related. Father: Charles William Beatty
Mother: Margaret "Maggie" Fortney Lennis Beatty (high school lunch lady)
Sister: Mary Margaret Beatty Gwinner
Wife: (div., four children)
Son: Douglas Beatty (with first wife)
Son: Charles Beatty (with first wife, twin)
Son: Lennis Beatty (with first wife, twin)
Son: Wallace Beatty (with first wife)
Wife: Belinda Rowley (actress, m. 1971, div., two children)
Son: John Beatty (with Rowley)
Daughter: Blossom Beatty (with Rowley)
Wife: Dorothy Adams Tinker Lindsey (m. 28-Jun-1979, div. Mar-1998, two children)
Son: Thomas "Tinker" Beatty (b. 1980, with Lindsey)
Daughter: Dorothy Beatty (b. 1983, with Lindsey)
Wife: Sandra Johnson (m. 20-Nov-1999)
University: Transylvania University, Lexington, KY
Risk Factors: Bipolar Disorder, Obesity
TELEVISION
Homicide: Life on the Street Det. Stanley Bolander (1993-95)
Roseanne Ed Conner (1989-96)
Szysznyk Nick Szysznyk (1977-78)
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Birth of the Living Dead (18-Oct-2013) · Himself
Rampart (10-Sep-2011) · Hartshorn
Rango (3-Mar-2011) · Mayor [VOICE]
Toy Story 3 (12-Jun-2010) · Lotso [VOICE]
The Killer Inside Me (24-Jan-2010)
In the Electric Mist (7-Feb-2009) · Twinky Lemoyne
Charlie Wilson's War (21-Dec-2007)
Shooter (23-Mar-2007)
The Walker (13-Feb-2007) · Jack Delorean
Sweet Land (2005) · Harmo
The Wool Cap (21-Nov-2004)
Where the Red Fern Grows (3-May-2003) · Sheriff Abe McConnell
Thunderpants (24-May-2002)
Roughing It (16-Mar-2002)
Homicide: The Movie (13-Feb-2000)
Spring Forward (Sep-1999) · Murph
Life (13-Apr-1999) · Dexter Wilkins
Cookie's Fortune (22-Jan-1999) · Lester Boyle
He Got Game (1-May-1998)
The Curse of Inferno (1997)
Crazy Horse (7-Jul-1996)
Gulliver's Travels (4-Feb-1996)
Streets of Laredo (12-Nov-1995)
The Affair (14-Oct-1995)
Just Cause (17-Feb-1995) · McNair
Radioland Murders (21-Oct-1994)
Rudy (18-Sep-1993)
Ed and His Dead Mother (1993) · Uncle Benny
Prelude to a Kiss (10-Jul-1992) · Dr. Boyle
Trial: The Price of Passion (3-May-1992)
Hear My Song (7-Sep-1991)
Captain America (27-Feb-1991)
Repossessed (14-Sep-1990)
A Cry in the Wild (1-Jun-1990)
Going Under (1990)
Big Bad John (1990)
Chattahoochee (16-Sep-1989) · Dr. Harwood
Tennessee Waltz (6-Aug-1989) · Kiefer
Physical Evidence (27-Jan-1989)
Time Trackers (1989)
Purple People Eater (Dec-1988)
Go Toward the Light (1-Nov-1988)
Midnight Crossing (13-May-1988) · Ellis
The Unholy (22-Apr-1988)
Switching Channels (4-Mar-1988) · Roy Ridnitz
The Trouble with Spies (4-Dec-1987) · Harry Lewis
The Fourth Protocol (28-Aug-1987)
The Big Easy (27-Mar-1987)
Back to School (13-Jun-1986) · Dean Martin
Konrad (13-Oct-1985)
Restless Natives (Jun-1985)
The Last Days of Pompeii (6-May-1984)
Celebrity (12-Feb-1984)
Touched (Oct-1983) · Herbie
Stroker Ace (16-Sep-1983) · Clyde Torkle
The Toy (10-Dec-1982) · Mr. Morehouse
The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (29-Jun-1982)
A Woman Called Golda (26-Apr-1982)
Splendor in the Grass (26-Oct-1981)
Superman II (19-Jun-1981) · Otis
The Incredible Shrinking Woman (30-Jan-1981) · Dan Beame
Hopscotch (10-Oct-1980) · Myerson
All God's Children (28-Apr-1980)
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (15-Apr-1980)
The American Success Company (Mar-1980)
1941 (14-Dec-1979) · Ward Douglas
Wise Blood (24-Oct-1979) · Hoover Shoates
Friendly Fire (22-Apr-1979)
Promises in the Dark (1979)
Superman (15-Dec-1978) · Otis
The Great Bank Hoax (Nov-1978)
Gray Lady Down (10-Mar-1978) · Mickey
Alambrista! (16-Oct-1977)
Exorcist II: The Heretic (17-Jun-1977) · Edwards
Our Town (30-May-1977)
Mikey and Nicky (21-Dec-1976)
Silver Streak (3-Dec-1976) · Sweet
Network (27-Nov-1976) · Arthur Jensen
The Big Bus (22-Oct-1976)
All the President's Men (7-Apr-1976) · Dardis
The Deadly Tower (18-Oct-1975)
Nashville (11-Jun-1975)
W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (21-May-1975)
Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan (20-Feb-1975)
The Execution of Private Slovik (13-Mar-1974)
White Lightning (22-Oct-1973)
The Last American Hero (27-Jul-1973)
The Thief Who Came to Dinner (Mar-1973)
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (18-Dec-1972)
Footsteps (3-Oct-1972)
Deliverance (30-Jul-1972)
Official Website:
http://www.nedbeattysings.com/
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