TIL: in the iconic banjo scene in Deliverance the young boy, Billy Redden, couldn't actually play the banjo, so he wore a special shirt which allowed a real banjo player to hide behind him for the scene, whose arms were slipped around Redden's waist to play the tune. “But the actor who portrayed the hillbilly boy, Billy Redden, couldn’t play – and, in fact, in the movie, his arms are someone else’s. Trivia: He did not know how to play the banjo in the film. … But that’s not him playing on the soundtrack: “When it came to actually record the song, John Boorman wanted me to play it,” Cox says. His name is Billy Redden. Billy Redden wasn't an actor. To solve the problem, they got Beatty to step towards Billy at the close of the shot. Are actually stealing from the government while the homeless in the real world, if you must, suffer with no hope. https://gunaxin.com/tribute-banjo-player-deliverance-dueling-banjos He had mixed feelings about the movie. Billy Redden plays Lonnie, the boy who shares the banjo duel with Drew (Cox), but while bright and talented he couldn't actually play the banjo well enough. https://www.tmz.com/2008/12/09/creepy-banjo-kid-in-delivrance-memba-him Use in Deliverance In Deliverance, a scene depicts Billy Redden playing it opposite Ronny Cox, who joins him on guitar. His left arm in the scene actually belongs to a second boy who's crouched behind him. You know the one: "Squeal like a pig." PLAYING ALONG - - Actor Billy Redden was just 16-years-old when he starred opposite actors Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight and Ned Beatty in the 1972 film "Deliverance." The music was composed in 1955 by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith. But Deliverance also brought to life & Redden plays "Lonnie" — a mentally challenged inbred, but extremely gifted, banjo player. Film director John Boorman hid another, more skilled youngster behind Redden and had him fret the notes with his left hand. Another boy who could play reached around him. The 16 year old young man Billy Redden who played the ”local” banjo player part in the movie ”Deliverance” did not actually play the banjo. Deliverance is to wilderness survival movies as Goodfellas is to mob movies - a prime example of a film that gets every last detail exactly right. Well, to expose the reality behind the movie magic, he was a regular kid named Redden’s lone scene is one of two for which “Deliverance” is most famous (squeal if you know the other). [quote] The Banjo Kid Couldn't Really Play The Banjo. Like Billy Redden, he couldn’t play a banjo either. It just so happened that Smith was a good friend of actor Andy Griffith and when the studio offered him … REMEMBER THE CREEPY BANJO KID FROM DELIVERANCE? [2] He was 80. “The boy (Billy Redden) actually is quite bright, but because of the way he looked, he was treated as retarded by the community.” Redden couldn’t play banjo, so they found another kid who could. Photograph by Jason Maris. The special shirt he wore concealed the real banjo player behind him who actually played the banjo. Billy Redden played 'Lonnie'. Billy was hand-picked from his local elementary school largely due to his “look” ( Billy’s large head,skinny body, odd-shaped eyes and moronic grin had sadly branded […] He could not play at all. He lives in Rabun County, Georgia which is where most of the movie was filmed. “Banjo Boy” Billy Redden. He’d say it was the best damned play ever produced on or off Broadway. Billy Redden was the young "inbred" actor that played Lonnie, the banjo in the film Deliverance. Eric Weissberg, who arranged, played banjo on and won a Grammy for “Dueling Banjos,” from the 1972 movie Deliverance, died Sunday of Alzheimer’s disease complications. More than 45 years later, it still retains its raw, unforgettable power. Redden, then sixteen, earned his role in Deliverance during a casting call at Clayton Elementary School in Clayton, Georgia. Viewers can freeze-frame on his big scene, which lasts a matter of seconds. Billy Redden's appearance in Tim Burton's "Big Fish" will best be appreciated when the film lands on home video. Billy Redden (born 1956 in Rabun County, Georgia) is an American actor best known for his role as Lonnie—the "creepy banjo kid"—in the 1972 movie Deliverance. Redden could not actually play the banjo. But there’d be this difference. Glen Campbell and Much Much More via YouTubeThe movie Deliverance is unforgettable for an especially evil scene. He actually didn't and still does not know how to play the banjo. Leah from Brooklyn, Ny Ronnie Cox, who mimed the Guitar (and feigned a double-jointed death in the river) in DELIVERANCE is now playing the character of the recurring slimy villain Senator Kinsey on TV series STARGATE SG-1. “We used his left hand and made extra sleeve on Redden’s shirt. You are a musician — did you actually play the guitar in the ... although I’m not nearly a good enough guitarist. At the end of the dueling banjos scene, the script called for Billy to harden his expression towards Cox's character, but Billy couldn't pretend to hate Cox. Redden next appeared in Tim Burton's 2003 film Big Fish. "I hope you're not disillusioned." There seems to be a debate over whether Billy Redden or Hoyt Pollard played the banjo playing inbreed in Deliverance.Does anybody know who this Hoyt Pollard guy is and what his claim to fame is? This 16-year-old boy from Rabun County, Georgia was the only “authentic” local to play the role of The Banjo Boy in John Boorman’s disturbing hit movie of 1972 Deliverance. IMDB trivia: "Billy Redden, the boy with the banjo, liked Ronny Cox and hated Ned Beatty. (I’m relatively certain Tim Burton would have gotten the right kid.) The hand you see is not Redden’s, it’s the other kid crouched behind him. To simulate the realistic chord playing on the banjo, another boy, who was a skilled banjo-player, played the chords with his arm reaching around at Redden's side while Redden picked. The part of the banjo-playing boy in “Deliverance” was played by Billy Redden. He’d stand in the lines outside the theater and ask people what they thought of it and then say, “That’s my play!” That’s what he did when the film of Deliverance came out. In the summer of 1971, Hollywood came to North Georgia to bring James Dickey’s Deliverance to the silver screen. Close. A body double actually played the banjo. Unlike Ronny Cox with his guitar, actor Billy Redden did not know how to play banjo for the famous "Duelling Banjos" scene. 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