[4] In 1956, Beatty made his stage debut at age 19, appearing in Wilderness Road, an outdoor-historical pageant located in Berea, Kentucky.

[7] In 1972, Beatty made his film debut as Bobby Trippe in Deliverance, starring Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds, and set in northern Georgia.

Beatty's character is forced to strip at gunpoint by two mountain men who humiliate and rape him, a scene so shocking that it is still referred to as a screen milestone.

Beatty received his only Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actor category for the acclaimed film Network (1976), portraying a television network's bombastic but shrewd chairman of the board who convinces the mad Howard Beale character (portrayed by Peter Finch) that corporation-led global dehumanization is not only inevitable, but is also a good thing.

[13] In 1977, he returned to work with John Boorman in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), and appeared in "The Final Chapter", the first episode of the television series Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected.

Later that year, Beatty was cast by Richard Donner to portray Lex Luthor's inept henchman Otis in Superman: The Movie (1978), as he would in the 1980 sequel, where his character is seen being left behind in prison.

He received his first nomination for Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Special for the television series Friendly Fire (1979).

In 1981, Beatty appeared in the comedy/science fiction film The Incredible Shrinking Woman, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Lily Tomlin.

By the end of the 1980s, Beatty appeared in another comedy film, as the academic "Dean Martin" in Back to School (1986), starring Rodney Dangerfield.

He played a corrupt cop in the 1987 American neo-noir crime film The Big Easy, directed by Jim McBride and starring Dennis Quaid, and continued with a spy drama, The Fourth Protocol (1987), opposite Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan.

Entering the 1990s, Beatty gained his third nomination for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special category for Last Train Home (1990).

A year later, he appeared in the British film Hear My Song (1991), in which he portrayed tenor Josef Locke, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture.

[citation needed] In the beginning of the 2000s, he was a member of the original cast of the television police drama reunion film Homicide: The Movie (2000), reprising his role of Detective Stanley Bolander.

Beatty also enjoyed a career as a stage actor, including a run in the Broadway and London productions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Brendan Fraser and Frances O'Connor.

Congressman Doc Long in the true story Charlie Wilson's War (2007), with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, directed by Mike Nichols.

[13] In 2011, Beatty worked with actor Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski in the animated film Rango (2011),[20] playing the role of Tortoise John.

[21] Beatty's next film was The Big Ask (2013), a dark comedy about three couples who head to the desert to help their friend heal after the death of his mother.

The film featured Gillian Jacobs, Zachary Knighton, David Krumholtz, Melanie Lynskey, Ahna O'Reilly, and Jason Ritter, and was directed by his son Thomas Beatty and Rebecca Fishman.

[23] On June 29, 2012, Beatty attended a 40th anniversary screening of Deliverance at Warner Bros., with Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox and Jon Voight.