Bill McKinney, who died yesterday at age 80, was a hard-working, well-liked character actor whom many remember for his supporting roles in several Clint Eastwood films of the ’70s and ’80s — Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Gauntlet, Pink Cadillac, etc. But let’s face it — McKinney’s biggest claim to fame is for playing the hilllbilly rapist in Deliverance (’72), more specifically as the guy who sodomized Ned Beatty in the woods while going “wheeeee!”
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Bill McKinney (1931 – 2011)
I mean, I’m sorry to put it crudely (if that’s what I’ve done) but that is what McKinney is famous for. I would add that McKinney’s “wheeee!” probably inspired tens of thousands of straight men and women in the ’70s to mimic his “wheeeee!” during lovemaking. I know it caught on to some degree. I myself was with two women who goaded me into this and thought it was kind of kinky-funny. On separate occasions, I mean.
McKenny also had semi-distinctive roles in The Parallax View, Junior Bonner, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The Shootist, First Blood, Against All Odds, Heart Like a Wheel and The Green Mile. His Wiki bio says he “took up singing in the late 1990s, eventually releasing an album of standards and country & western songs appropriately titled Love Songs from Antri.”
McKinney succumbed to cancer. Condolences to his family and friends.
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