RIP Ned Beatty

Ned Beatty in "Deliverance"

 

The great character actor Ned Beatty has died. He was 83.

It is unfair to say he was great in everything he did? Or that every character was memorable? Well, that was him.

He was nominated for an Oscar for a brief appearance in the brilliant "Network," a move so prescient that it is frightening. Beyond that, he was in so much from TV and film.

And, of course, he was in "Deliverance," and if you haven't seen it, well, I'm not sure I can prepare you for it. If you have seen it, you'll never forget it.

Maybe you saw him in the first two "Superman" movies as Gene Hackman's sidekick.

My immediate reaction was to go back to "Deliverance" to remember him when I found out that he had died.  

In "Rudy"

Then I thought of him in "Rudy."

Ah, "Rudy." I get it. Cheesy, hokey, and Notre Dame. And it is.

Yet, if you can get past the fawning over ND you understand that it's a movie about never giving up. Rudy doesn't want the life of his father. He doesn't want his hometown. He doesn't want to disown any of it but he wants to pursue his drea of playing football at Notre Dame.

Besides, you begin to focus more on other characters, like Charles S. Dutton's Fortune, who delivers one of the key speeches in the movie.

 "You're five-foot nothin', a hundred and nothin' and hardly have a spec of athletic ability and you hung in with the best college football team in the land for two years, and you were also going to walk out of here with a degree from the University of Norte Dame. In this lifetime you don't have to prove nothing to nobody except yourself and after what you gone through, if you haven't done that by now, it ain't gonna never happen"

Sort of makes you want to run through a wall.

And, of course, there's the famous chanting of "Roo-Dee! Roo-Dee!" led by Jon Favreau.

Yet there's Ned Beatty as Rudy's father. A lifelong Notre Dame fan who's got that steel mill town tough exterior (because he, you know, works in a steel mill), Daniel Ruettiger, Sr. would love nothing more than to go to Notre Dame Stadium.

He's also fairly unlikeable but that's the paradox of Ned Beatty. 

Nobody believes in Rudy, of course (after all, he's five-foot nothin'). But through perseverance, he eventually suits up for one game in 1975. Rudy's family travels to South Bend to see the game.

For all of us who have that father/son thing (and especially those of us missing our dads) there's the magical moment as Papa Ruettiger gets his first view inside Notre Dame Stadium.

Cheesy. Hokie. And Ned Beatty spikes the ball.

"This is the most beautiful sight that these eyes have ever seen."

Chills. Tears.

Farewell, Ned, and thanks.