2. James Dickey and John Boorman allegedly got into a fistfight on set, in which the writer broke the director’s nose and knocked out his teeth.
Dickey was a contradictory figure, a man of letters who served in the air force in both World War Two and the Korean War, an ad man who was also a college professor as well as a poet laureate. “Deliverance,” which the writer hinted was based on real events (although few believe him; Boorman says “nothing in that book actually happened to him”) was his first and only experience in the film industry (although after his death, the
Coen Brothers tried to make a silent version of his final book, “
To The White Sea,” with
Brad Pitt). Dickey, who was also an alcoholic, clashed heavily with Boorman throughout the shoot, particularly after the director cut the first 19 pages of the shooting script.
According to Jon Voight‘s body double on the film,
Claude Terry, Dickey would sit in a bar saying to all and sundry “God, they’re ruining my ****ing movie, ain’t they? They’re not doing my book,” while Boorman says that Dickey was drunk on set, and became “very overbearing with the actors.” According to legend, things reached a peak when director and writer got into a fistfight which left Boorman with a broken nose and four teeth knocked out. Dickey was ejected from the set, but was allowed to return to film a cameo as the Sheriff in the film’s conclusion (although contrary to popular opinion, it’s not
Ed O’Neill as one of the other cops).