Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

Bill McKinney

Actor

Born - 12 September 1931, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
Died - 1 December 2011

Brown-haired, small-eyed, hostile-looking American actor with square, sometimes bearded features: an ace portrayer of unpleasant villains. As Burt Reynolds, his co-star in Deliverance (1972) put it: 'He usually played sickos, but he played them well'. McKinney was a latecomer to acting, only taking lessons (Dustin Hoffman was a fellow student) at 26. He worked as a tree surgeon while looking for acting jobs, and was 36 before he broken into exploitation films: She Freak (1967), The Road Hustlers (1968), Firecreek (1968) and Angel Unchained (1970). His success in Deliverance qualified him for a good run of redneck bad guys: Junior Bonner (1972), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), The Outfit (1973), For Pete's Sake (1974), Breakheart Pass (1975), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), The Shootist (1976), Every Which Way But Loose (1978), Any Which Way You Can (1980), First Blood (1982), Against All Odds (1984), Pink Cadillac 1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), City Slickers: the Legend of Curly's Gold (1994), The Green Mile (1999), Hellborn (2003), Lucky You (2007) and The Custom Mary (2011), his last. He died from cancer of the oesophagus.