Banjo boy

At just the right angle, the adult Billy Redden looks a bit like the late, great Robin Williams.

Whom, you might ask, is Billy Redden? He happens to be an actor who was in one of the most iconic scenes in motion picture history, playing the banjo boy in Deliverance. In a stunning moment, he winds up playing a musical duet, the now famous Dueling Banjos, with Ronnie Cox as Jon Voight, Ned Beatty (who has his own iconic moment in the film for an entirely different reason) and Burt Reynolds look on. Truth be told, it was a little Hollywood magic: it wasn't actually Billy playing. But that ain't no never mind.

As anyone who's in the industry knows, show biz can be a cruel tease. And the years and opportunities haven't been particularly kind to Billy. Few and far between, he has had other parts. He was in Tim Burton's Big Fish, and had a small part on Blue Collar as—wait for it—an inbred car mechanic who plays the banjo.

Currently, Billy is working in maintenance at WalMart, picking up trash among other things.

Like Andy Robinson, who did go on to a moderately successful career after playing the Zodiac-esque killer Scorpio in Dirty Harry, Billy was typecast fairly quickly at a young age. He reminds me of Ron Wayne, the third founder of Apple who sold his shares after nine days for $900. If he'd held on to them, they'd be worth $32 billion today. And while it's a fact Billy never flirted with that kind of fortune, I can't help think they're similar in that "what might've been" way. Given the right management, a little more training and a few lucky breaks, would he have been a household name, with a brilliant debut as a child actor?

In the few interviews I've read, it's clear I'm more bothered by it than he is.

The truth is he has a scene that any actor would kill for, one that will now and forever be an enduring part of film history. Every once in a while, I find myself in the mood to watch it. And it always brings me great joy when I do.

If he watches it, I hope Billy feels the same way.

Music lesson

I'm sure you know the guy on the right. Here's a clue: he's Angelina Jolie's father, and he's also a National Treasure (see what I did there?).

If you said Jon Voight, you're correct.

And if you think the guy on the left looks like him, except with Michael Landon's hair, the reason is it's his brother James Wesley Voight, who goes by the stage name Chip Taylor.

You probably haven't heard of James Wesley. And unless you're a music fan you also may not be familiar with Chip Taylor. But you should be.

Chip has written a lot of songs, but is most well known for two of them. The first, surprisingly, is an empowering female anthem that was first made famous by Merrilee Rush, then later a huge hit for Juice Newton ("Hi Mrs. Newton, can Juice come out and play?).

It goes a little something like this:

The other song he wrote has been a rock classic since the minute he penned it. To this day, at keggers worldwide, for no apparent reason groups of drunk frat boys break out singing it. It's also been used to full comic effect in many films, like Major League where it wasn't just a song but was also the character's nickname.

WARNING: There's some rough language in the clip:

It was also one of the many (alright, two) number one with a bullet hits for The Troggs, along with this one.

In the mid-70's, Chip Taylor left music to become a professional gambler. At one point he was betting $10,000 a day on blackjack, and eventually was banned from Vegas casinos for card counting. In the early 90's he returned to music and performing.

I'll end this post by leaving you with Angelina Jolie's uncle performing his version of the song that made him a bazillion dollars over the years: