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Actor Herbert ‘Cowboy’ Coward, best known for his iconic appearance in Deliverance, died Wednesday (Jan. 24) following a fatal car crash. He was 85.
Local news outlet WLOS reports the actor and his girlfriend, Bertha Brooks, 78, were both killed in a collision in North Carolina. Their pet chihuahua and pet squirrel were also killed.
According to the outlet, the couple was struck by a 16-year-old driving a pickup truck, though authorities say the teen was not speeding. Charges have not yet been filed.
Coward is best known for his iconic role as the Toothless Man in the Oscar-nominated drama Deliverance, where he uttered the phrase: “He got a real purty mouth, ain’t he?”
He landed the role when he was working at Ghost Town in the Sky, a western-style amusement park in North Carolina where he was employed as an actor performing shoot-outs. Then up-and-coming Burt Reynolds was a colleague of his, who recommended that he audition for a role in the film.
In 2018, Reynolds praised Coward’s audition and performance during an interview with Conan O’Brien.
“John Boorman, an Irish director, the best director I ever had, said, ‘Where am I gonna find these guys … the Mountain Men?'” he recalled. “And I said, ‘I know a guy. He can’t read and he can’t write or anything, but I’m telling you, if we can get him we got something special.’ So I said, ‘Let me bring him in. His name’s Coward, and you’ll see if you like him.'”
According to Reynolds, Coward was given the part on the spot. Reynolds said he also instructed Coward to improvise as much as he wanted in the film, telling him, “‘Coward, just whatever you wanna say, say it. They’ll cut it out if they don’t like it.” He added, “He just started ad-libbing up a storm. And they kept every word he said because it was gold.”
In a 2022 interview with WLOS News 13, Coward recalled one of the last times he saw Reynolds before his 2018 death.
“He said he only had three friends his whole acting career, and I was one of them,” Coward recalled. “I had a lot of memories with Burt.”
After his Deliverance performance, Coward later appeared in Ghost Town: The Movie, a 2007 western in which he also served as an associate producer, and the 2013 television series Hillbilly Blood.
Coward also made an appearance in 2021 in Moonshiners, in which he played himself.
