He served two years on a mine sweeper in Korean waters, and was stationed at Port Hueneme in Ventura County, California.

[2] After the Pasadena Playhouse, McKinney moved on to Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio, making his movie debut in exploitation pic She Freak (1967).

He made his television debut in 1968 on an episode of The Monkees and attracted attention as Lobo in Alias Smith and Jones.

The film Deliverance (1972) proved to be his breakthrough, playing the backwoods mountain man who violently rapes Ned Beatty's character.

[1] McKinney's other films in the early 1970s included appearances in Junior Bonner (1972),[3] The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) and The Parallax View (1974).

He was 80 and still strong enough to have filmed a Dorito's commercial 2 weeks prior to his passing, and he continued to work on his biography with his writing partner.