One Life, Two Loves

Music and Mary... Two Lifelong Loves

by Todd Fuqua

When talking about his career and life, there’s one constant Ronny Cox (BS 63) always makes sure is front and center – the love of his life, Mary Lee (Griffith) Cox (BS 63).

Mary has been gone from Ronny’s life since she passed away in 2006 – but her impact on him is still felt today.

“Mary and I were married 46 years, and she died 50 years to the day from when we went on our first date,” said Ronny, who returned to Portales for a performance at the ENMU Theatre Center (UTC) in November. “I was lucky I found the love of my life.”

Ronny made his name as an actor – his most successful run came in the 1980s, when he was in big budget productions and sharing the screen with names like Eddie Murphy and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In recent years he’s returned to his musical roots.

“Early in my career, everyone knew that I was this actor from New Mexico that played music,” Ronny said. “When I was here in the late 50s and early 60s, Clovis was a hotbed of popular music. I was around when Buddy Holly was recording ‘Peggy Sue.’ I was cutting records at Norman Petty Studios when I was in high school.”

Ronny (second from left) as he appeared in the Portales News-Tribune in 1958 with his band, Ron’s Rockouts. On bass was his brother Rickey (far left) and his brother Mike was on lead guitar (second from right). On drums was Bob Kinsey, while Pat Hunt played the bongos.

Petty heard Ronny’s band – Ron’s Rockouts – perform, and hired them to sing backup on records. The band featured Ronny’s brothers Rickey (MBA 86 BS 75) on bass and Mike on lead guitar.

Years at Eastern

It was while at ENMU that Ronny honed his acting talent. He regularly spent his summers performing with a Colorado melodrama company to practice his craft.

He said Eastern’s size contributed to him getting a lot of roles he might otherwise have never even considered.

“At many major universities, you might be lucky to do one or two shows in your entire college career. But the way to learn to act is by doing it, so I was cast in all kinds of roles,” Ronny said. “ There were roles I was wrong for, but I wanted to tackle anything I could. I graduated from college with more experience acting than many other college graduates.”

While he was getting experience, he was also falling more and more in love with Mary. The two were married in 1960 and worked hard to build a life together in those lean early years.

Mary Lee and Ronny Cox, married Sept. 10, 1960.

“Both Mary and I were on scholarship. We had no money,” Ronny said. “I arranged to have all my classes Monday, Wednesday and Friday, going to school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m, then play practice every night. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I’d work at the grocery store just to make ends meet.”

Professional success

His musical talent followed him into his professional acting career.

“When we went to Washington, D.C. – Mary was working on her Ph.D. at Georgetown – I was working at a theater there. There was a club on Capitol Hill, Mr. Henry’s, with two rooms. Roberta Flack was playing upstairs; I was playing downstairs.”

It was that musical ability that eventually landed Ronny his first big role, as one of a quartet of unfortunate Atlanta businessmen who were caught off-guard while camping in the Georgia wilderness in the 1972 film “Deliverance.” Ronny said he got the part – in his feature-film debut – because director John Boorman wanted an actor who could actually play the guitar.

The scene that made Ronny famous, from “Deliverance.”

“It was me, but it wasn’t me playing in the movie,” Ronny said of the famous “Dueling Banjos” scene in which his character plays an impromptu duet with a banjo-playing youth near the beginning of the film.

“John liked the idea of this savant kid showing up this amateur guitar player. The kid we got knew nothing about the banjo, so the banjo didn’t even have strings.

“But John wanted to be able to cut to someone’s hands playing the right notes, and that’s why I was hired,” he continued.

Ronny was taught to play the song note-for-note by Steve Mandell, who recorded the song with Eric Weissberg. It was a recording that became a huge hit in the wake of the film’s release, but Ronny wasn’t a part of that.

“Did I play it? Yes. Is that Mary and Ronny on the set of CBS’s “Apple’s Way.” Ronny played guitar and sang in every episode. me on the recording? No,” Ronny said. “Did it cost me about a million dollars? Yes!”

While Ronny may not have capitalized on that recording’s success, his role in the film did kick-start an acting career that has spanned almost four decades, with high profile roles and fame.

Mary and Ronny on the set of CBS’s “Apple’s Way.” Ronny played guitar and sang in every episode.

But music was never that far from his mind. His first television role, two years after “Deliverance,” was on the CBS family-oriented series “Apple’s Way.” On that show, he played guitar and sang every week.

His musical inclination is why he took the part of police chief Roger Kendrick in the short-lived police drama-musical series “Cop Rock.”

It was an odd choice for everyone involved, as series creator Steven Bochco had the idea of pairing a high-drama police procedural with musical numbers throughout, but Ronny was on board from the beginning.

“We did five original songs every week, and it was 20 years ahead of its time,” Ronny said. “It was “Glee” before that was popular. However, it’s one thing to see high school kids sing and dance in a show, but cops?”

The show may have been considered a failure – it was cancelled by ABC after just 11 episodes – but it did turn Ronny’s career in a different direction that he doesn’t regret.

“When we did Cop Rock, that’s when I realized how much I missed the music,” Cox said. “For a while I was in every big movie there was, playing all these authoritative types. After Cop Rock, I turned down a lot of roles for a couple of years and went to Nashville to get a recording deal.”

Ronny eventually recorded an album appropriately named “Ronny Cox,” and he was officially hooked on the music.

Music is his life

Now his career is all about music, but he still uses his acting experience in his shows.

“I use all the arrows in my quiver,” Ronny said. “I’m a story teller, and my show’s different than everyone else’s. It’s like a two-act play.”

"I've never had another girlfriend or date in my life other than Mary. She was just everything to me. Everything really is about her, that's just how it works."

- Ronny Cox

While he’s been around the world and been on screen with some of the film industry’s biggest stars, the person he talks about most is Mary.

“Mary was the most intelligent human being I’d ever known,” Ronny said. “It was always so much fun to talk to her about things. I could talk about that deep, maybe six inches, on any subject, but that was because Mary could talk three feet deep.”

Mary graduated from ENMU with a degree in chemistry, later earning a Ph.D. at Georgetown University and doing research at the Sloan-Kettering Institute in Rye, New York.

But before accomplishing all that, she was a young girl that Ronny met and fell in love with.

“I met her when she was 11 and I was 14. We started dating when she was a high school sophomore, and I was a senior,” he added. “I’ve never had another girlfriend or date in my life other than Mary. She was just everything to me.

“I’ve thought about what she means in my performances. I have a song or two that I do that touches on her. But when I get to thinking about it, everything really is about her. That’s just how it works.”