Film and TV actor Ned Beatty, who was Oscar nominated for his supporting role in “Network” and appeared in a number of the most significant American films of the 1970s, has died.
Beatty appeared in four films that were nominated for the Oscar best picture award in the 1970s: “Deliverance” .
Beatty gave many excellent supporting performances as unsympathetic characters.
By the mid-1970s, Beatty was also a steady presence in TV through guest shots in “Gunsmoke,” “The Rockford Files,” “Hawaii 5-0,” “Hunter,” “Delvecchio,” and in TV movies such as 1980’s “Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones” in which Beatty played Rep.
Earlier, in 1975, he turned in a powerful guest performance on “MASH” as Col.
Beatty made two attempts at starring in a series of his own, with the brief 1977 sitcom “Szysznyk” and 1993’s even briefer “The Boys,” in which he played the father of Christopher Meloni’s character.
He appeared on Broadway in the original 1968 production of “The Great White Hope” that starred James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, and returned to the Main Stem in 2003 to star as Big Daddy in a revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” that also starred Ashley Judd and Jason Patric.