Herbert “Cowboy” Coward, who played the mountain men in John Boorman’s Deliverance died in a car crash on Wednesday. The actor was 85 years old.
Coward was in the car with his girlfriend, Bertha Brooks, she was 78 years old. Coward and Brooks pet chihuahua and squirrel were also in the car during the crash. The accident occurred around 3:30 p.m. ET Wednesday on U.S. Route 19/23 in Haywood County. Their vehicle was struck by a pickup truck. The pair were announced dead by the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. The 16 year old driver of the pickup truck that struck the car was taken tot he hospital. No reports on the state of the driver have been announced.
Coward and his girlfriend were leaving a doctor’s appointment when they were struck by the truck. Neither passengers was wearing a seatbelt when the crash occurred. No charges have been filed.
Coward was a long time friend of Burt Reynolds, who starred in the movie Deliverance alongside Coward. The two worked as actor’s at a ghost town amusement park in Maggie Valley, North Carolina in the 1960s. Reynolds revealed that the actor’s famous toothless smile was because of a prop gun accident at the pair’s first job at the amusement park.
Coward got the role as one of the mountain men in the Deliverance after Reynolds recommended his friend to John Boorman. When Coward got the role, the actor could not read or write and is said to have come up with the “squeal like a pig” line that actor Bill McKinney said during the movie.
Coward stepped away from acting after the role, working for BASF factor in Asheville, North Carolina for 27 years. He briefly returned to acting in 2007 for the Ghost Town: The Movie.
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