Ronny Cox

Ronny Cox didn't know how to play the guitar professionally when John Boorman cast him in Deliverance in 1972. The famous banjo duel scene on the porch of a remote Georgia gas station was filmed with a real musician hidden behind the actor's chair. Those few minutes of film were enough to make audiences forget that Cox had spent years working in theater in Washington.

Born in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, in 1938, he grew up in a family where folk music was the language of everyday life. His arrival in Hollywood was not a pursuit of fame but a result of his ability to seem like an ordinary man in extraordinary situations. Before that film debut, he worked as a tailor and a teacher.

That was the beginning of the end of his days as an anonymous man.

During the first half of the 1980s, his image became associated with kindly authority figures. In 1984, he played Lieutenant Andrew Bogomil in Beverly Hills Cop alongside Eddie Murphy. The film grossed $316 million worldwide and placed him at the center of major studio productions.

The Turn Toward Corporate Tyranny

But Paul Verhoeven saw something different in his gaze while preparing RoboCop in 1987. The Dutch director decided that Cox would play Dick Jones (OCP's vice president), an executive willing to do anything to control the city of Detroit. Cox abandoned his image as the reliable neighbor to embody the coldness of the most ruthless capitalism.

And the experiment worked so well that Verhoeven called him back three years later. In 1990, he filmed Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Cohaagen. His character controlled the oxygen supply on Mars and charged miners simply for the right to breathe.

He became the industry's favorite suit-and-tie villain.

In 1992, he joined the universe of Star Trek: The Next Generation to bring Captain Edward Jellico to life. His authoritarian command style clashed head-on with the Enterprise crew over two episodes. Fans of the franchise still debate his management methods at conventions and in specialized forums.

The Guitar Over the Script

Because Ronny Cox never wanted to be just a face on screen. Starting in 1990, he began turning down supporting television roles to focus on his folk music tours across the United States. His contracts began including specific clauses that allowed him to miss filming days to keep his concert dates.

In 2012, he published his memoir titled Dueling Banjos: The Deliverance of Drew. In this book, he recounts how Boorman's film changed his perception of the industry and his relationship with fame. The book details the real tensions that arose during that river shoot on the Chattooga River.

Music has always been his true priority.

In 2021, he once again voiced Jellico in the animated series Star Trek: Prodigy. He still lives in California and runs his own independent record label. His music catalog includes ten studio albums recorded between 1993 and 2014.