Above video is the introduction of the hillbilies in Deliverance.
Deliverance director, John Boorman had one hillbilly cast and was looking for the second one. This proved to be difficult because no actor in Hollywood would want to show that his two front teeth were missing, which was a plot point in the movie. And that he was wearing false front teeth.
Burt Reynolds told Boorman, “I worked with a guy in a North Carolina western amusement park. He acted in gunfight skits. He’d be perfect, but that was twelve years ago. But maybe I can track him down.”
Burt called the amusement park and asked, “Have you ever heard of a guy named Herbert ‘Cowboy’ Coward?”
“Yeah, he’s right here.”
Burt told Coward about the opportunity. Coward said, “I can’t read.” Burt told him it would be okay and to drive to the hotel to audition for the director. Coward arrived with a wife and carload of kids wearing dirty overalls.
"Did you ask him to come in costume?" Boorman asked Burt.
"No, I didn't," Burt replied.
When asked to read, Coward looked at the script, then at Burt and shrugged his shoulders. Burt said, “Just say ‘Get yourself up against that tree and drop your ……’ "
Coward said, “Get, get ….yourself, self, up, up against … that, that, tree, and, and, drop ... your…’
“You’ve got the part,” the director said.
Coward was leaving the audition room when the director said, “You realize you play the part of a guy that sexually assaults two men in the woods?”
Coward said, “Well, I … I guess I’ve done a lot worse things than that.”
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