Herbert “Cowboy” Coward, the sometime actor and pal of Burt Reynolds who played one of the two scary, sadistic mountain men in John Boorman’s Deliverance, died Wednesday in a car crash in North Carolina.
He was 85. His death, along with that of his girlfriend Bertha Brooks, 78, and their pet Chihuahua and squirrel, was announced by North Carolina State Highway Patrol officials.
The crash occurred around 3:30 p.m./ET Wednesday on a U.S. Route 19/23 in North Carolina’s Haywood County. According to patrol officials, Coward’s vehicle was struck by a pickup truck driven by a 16-year-old, who was taken to a hospital for treatment.
No charges have been filed. North Carolina troopers told North Carolina TV station WLOS that Coward had just left a doctor’s office when his car was struck by the teen driver, who was not speeding.
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