Several messages made their way
to me this evening, and whilst I wished they were nothing more than fake news,
sadly they all proved to be true. I am of course referring to the death of a
hero and the quite unique Burt Reynolds. Burt died of a heart attack – he was
82.
I have gathered together a couple
of reports in order to collate this post and added some great shots, each of
which holds a very special memory.
Burt Reynolds, Star of ‘Deliverance’, ‘Smokey and the Bandit,’ Dies at
82
By RICHARD NATALE, Variety
In his colourful career Reynolds secured more than his share of both
good and bad press. He could be affable with the media but at times downright
hostile. Despite his many high-profile roles, the ones he is said to have
turned down were even bigger: He was offered the roles of James Bond, Han Solo,
the Richard Gere role in “Pretty Woman” and the Jack Nicholson role in “One
Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
In the early 1970s, Reynolds was a veteran of TV and film who spurred
the curiosity of Hollywood producers through his amusing appearances on late-night
talk shows, as well as the hyped publicity stunt of appearing as the first
celebrity male-nude centrefold in a 1972 issue of Cosmopolitan.
He was thus cast in his first A-title role, in John Boorman’s
“Deliverance,” one of the most popular and well received films of 1972 (several
major actors, including Marlon Brando, had turned the role down before it was
offered to Reynolds). The same year Woody Allen cast him in a small comedic
role in his film “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex.”
He solidified his position as a rising film star with 1974 prison
football drama “The Longest Yard.” In 1977 he starred with Sally Field and
Jackie Gleason in the comedy programmer “Smokey and the Bandit,” which proved
to be his most successful undertaking ever and was followed by the inevitable
sequels. That same year he was again on the gridiron in the hit comedy
“Semi-Tough.”
Reynolds made his directing debut with 1976 action film “Gator” and
1978’s black comedy “The End.”
Such was his popularity in box office polls during this period that he
managed to weather high-profile disasters like the musical “At Long Last Love,”
“Lucky Lady” and “Nickelodeon.” Other films during the 1970s included “W.W. and
the Dixie Dancekings,” “Fuzz,” “Shamus,” “The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing,”
“White Lightning,” “Hustle” and “Silent Movie.”
He brought the decade to a successful close with the action film
“Hooper” and the urbane comedy “Starting Over” and began the ’80s with a
popular sequel to “Smokey.” Over the next few years, there were hits like “Best
Little Whorehouse in Texas,” “Best Friends” and “City Heat,” as well as audience-friendly
fare like “Rough Cut,” “Sharky’s Machine” (which he also directed) and
“Cannonball Run.” Blake Edwards cast him in the lead of the American remake of
“The Man Who Loved Women” in 1983.
But the poorly received films like “Stroker Ace,” “Cannonball Run II,”
“Rent-a-Cop” and “Heat” took his career in a downward direction. Along the way
he turned down such potentially career-making roles as the ex-astronaut in
“Terms of Endearment,” for which Jack Nicholson won an Oscar. Reynolds retreated to his adopted home of Florida and opened the
Jupiter Theatre, a popular spot with local audiences where he directed several
productions and appeared in a couple as well. He endorsed the Florida Citrus
Commission and Quaker State Oil, then returned to television in a dozen TV
movies playing B.L. Stryker. After marrying television actress Loni Anderson,
Reynolds decided to produce and star in the sitcom “Evening Shade,” which ran
on CBS from 1990-94. Along the way he picked up an Emmy as best actor in a
comedy series.
Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. was born in Waycross, Ga., and attended
Florida State U. for two years on a football scholarship. But his promising
career as a running back was cut short by a knee injury suffered in a car
accident. Reynolds turned his attention to acting, moving to New York, where he
struggled for several years until he landed a role in a revival of “Mr.
Roberts” starring Charlton Heston in 1956.
He made his Broadway debut in the
short-lived “Look We’ve Come Through” and began accumulating guest shots on
television in programs such as “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Zane Grey
Theater,” “Route 66,” “Perry Mason” and “The Twilight Zone.”
Reynolds landed several series starring roles, mostly in Westerns,
starting with “Riverboat” in 1959. He appeared for three seasons as a Native
American on the long-running “Gunsmoke” in the mid-’60s, then moved over to the
cop/detective genre as the lead in “Hawk” (1966) and “Dan August” (1970-71). He
was simultaneously making movies, starting with “Armored Command” and “Angel
Baby” in 1961. But his ’60s output, which included “Navajo Joe,” “100 Rifles”
and “Sam Whiskey,” did little to further his feature film aspirations.
Reynolds’ assured performance in the controversial and violent
“Deliverance” started him on a decade or more of enormous success.
But after riding the wave of popularity, a messy, high-profile divorce
from and custody battle with Anderson in the early 1990s and a tell-almost-all
autobiography, “My Life,” in 1994 cast him in a negative light, not helped by
his understandable, but often irritable attitude toward the press, which was
always keenly interested in his love life.
Comeback attempts in movies including “Switching Channels,” “Cop and a
Half,” “The Man from Left Field” (which he also directed) and “Striptease” were
failures. By the mid-’90s the former $1 million-plus player’s services could be
had for as little as $100,000 (which he received for “Striptease”).
Toward the end of the decade he received critical kudos for his
performance as a self-deluded porno director in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie
Nights,” which brought him an Oscar nomination for supporting actor. Though he
was highly favored to win, Reynolds undercut himself by firing his agent for
casting him in the part and shunning publicity for the popular role.
After losing the Oscar he continued to work regularly in indifferent
projects like “The Crew,” “Mystery, Alaska” and “Universal Soldier III.” He was
second billed in Renny Harlin’s racecar actioner “Driven,” starring Sylvester
Stallone; played the coach in the comedic 2005 remake of “The Longest Yard”
that starred Adam Sandler; and played Boss Hogg in the feature adaptation of
“The Dukes of Hazzard,” also in 2005, but other film work was mostly in
lower-profile material.
The actor also kept busy on television, with guest appearances in “The
X-Files,” “Ed,” “My Name Is Earl” and “Burn Notice” and voice work on “Robot
Chicken,” “Duck Dodgers,” “American Dad” and “Archer.”
In September 2015 Reynolds was honoured by the Stuntmen’s Association
of Motion Pictures with the organization’s Richard “Diamond” Farnsworth Award. Reynolds
was married and divorced twice, first in the 1960s to “Laugh-In” comedienne Judy
Carne and then to Anderson.
He is survived by adopted son Quinton from his second marriage.
Film and television fans alike have taken to social media to remember
Burt.
Former governor and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the first
to tweet his remembrance of the star. “Burt Reynolds was one of my heroes. He
was a trailblazer. He showed the way to transition from being an athlete to
being the highest paid actor, and he always inspired me. He also had a great
sense of humor – check out his Tonight Show clips. My thoughts are with his
family,” he said.
Mark Wahlberg paid tribute to the star with a photo of his time
working with him on the movie “Boogie Nights.” “Rest in peace to a legend and a
friend,” Wahlberg tweeted.
Burt Reynolds, Movie Star Who Played It for Grins, Dies at 82
By Mike Barnes, Hollywood Reporter
The ex-jock from Florida starred in 'Deliverance' and 'Boogie Nights'
but preferred making such populist, fun fare as 'Smokey and the Bandit,' 'The
Cannonball Run' and 'Starting Over.' Burt Reynolds, the charismatic star of such films as Deliverance, The
Longest Yard and Smokey and the Bandit who set out to have as much fun as
possible on and off the screen — and wildly succeeded — has died. He was 82. Reynolds, who received an Oscar nomination when he portrayed porn
director Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997) and was the
No. 1 box-office attraction for a five-year stretch starting in the late 1970s,
died Thursday morning at Jupiter Medical Center in Florida, his manager, Erik
Kritzer, told The Hollywood Reporter.
The cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest.
Always with a wink, Reynolds shined in many action films (often doing
his own stunts) and in such romantic comedies as Starting Over (1979) opposite
Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen; The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)
with Dolly Parton; Best Friends (1982) with Goldie Hawn; and, quite aptly, The
Man Who Loved Women (1983) with Julie Andrews.
Though beloved by audiences for his brand of frivolous, good-ol'-boy
fare, the playful Reynolds rarely was embraced by the critics. The first time
he saw himself in Boogie Nights, he was so unhappy he fired his agent. (He went
on to win a Golden Globe but lost out in the Oscar supporting actor race to
Robin Williams for Good Will Hunting, a bitter disappointment for him.)
"I didn't open myself to new writers or risky parts because I
wasn't interested in challenging myself as an actor. I was interested in having
a good time," Reynolds recalled in his 2015 memoir, But Enough About Me.
"As a result, I missed a lot of opportunities to show I could play serious
roles. By the time I finally woke up and tried to get it right, nobody would
give me a chance."
Still, Reynolds had nothing to apologise for. He was Hollywood's
top-grossing star every year from 1978 through 1982, equalling the longest
stretch the business had seen since the days of Bing Crosby in the 1940s. In
1978, he had four movies playing in theatres at the same time.
Reynolds' career also is marked by the movies he didn't make. Harrison
Ford, Jack Nicholson and Bruce Willis surely were grateful after he turned down
the roles of Han Solo, retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove and cop John McClane
in Star Wars, Terms of Endearment and Die Hard, respectively. He often said
that passing on James L. Brooks' Endearment was one of his worst career
mistakes. (Nicholson won an Oscar for playing Breedlove.)
Reynolds also indicated he was Milos Forman's first choice to play
R.P. McMurphy (another Nicholson Oscar-winning turn) in One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest, "backed away" from playing Batman on TV in the 1960s
and declined the part made famous by Richard Gere in Pretty Woman.
In John Boorman's Deliverance (1972), based on a book by James Dickey,
Reynolds starred as macho survivalist Lewis Medlock, one of four guys from
Atlanta who head to the wilderness for the weekend. Filmed by Vilmos Zsigmond
along the Chattooga River near the Georgia-South Carolina border, it was an
arduous production that Boorman shot in sequence.
"When I asked John why, he said, 'In case one of you
drowns,'" Reynolds wrote.
He had good reason. When Reynolds saw test footage of a dummy in a
canoe going over the falls in one scene, he told Boorman the scene looked fake.
He climbed into the canoe, was sent crashing into the rocks and ended up in the
hospital. "I asked [Boorman] how [the new footage] looked, and he said,
'Like a dummy going over the falls,'" Reynolds wrote.
Deliverance, infamous for its uncut 10-minute hillbilly male rape
scene ("squeal like a pig"), was nominated for three Academy Awards
but came away empty. It lost out to The Godfather in the best picture battle.
"If I had to put only one of my movies in a time capsule, it
would be Deliverance," Reynolds wrote. "I don't know if it's the best
acting I've done, but it's the best movie I've ever been in. It proved I could
act, not only to the public but me."
Three months before the movie opened, Reynolds — once described by
journalist Scott Tobias as the "standard of hirsute masculinity" —
showed off his moustache and other assets when he posed nude on a bearskin rug
for a Cosmopolitan centerfold in April 1972. (Seven years later, he would
become the rare man to grace the cover of Playboy.)
The Cosmo issue sold an outlandish 1.5 million copies. "It's been
called one of the greatest publicity stunts of all time, but it was one of the
biggest mistakes I've ever made," he wrote, "and I'm convinced it
cost Deliverance the recognition it deserved."
A running back in high school and college who talked with legendary
coach Bear Bryant about attending Alabama, Reynolds put his gridiron skills to
use in Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard (1974), playing Paul
"Wrecking" Crewe, who leads his rag-tag team of prison inmates in a
game against the guards. He later starred in Semi-Tough (1977), another
football film.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977), written and directed by his pal, the
legendary stuntman Hal Needham, grossed $126 million (that's $508 million
today, and only Star Wars took in more that year). Reynolds, who stars as Bo
"Bandit" Darville, hired to transport 400 cases of Coors from Texas
to Atlanta in 28 hours, noted that, unbelievable as it sounds, Smokey was
Alfred Hitchcock's favourite movie.
Reynolds drives a sleek Pontiac Trans-Am in the film, and after the
picture opened, sales of the model soared. (His black car is mentioned in Bruce
Springsteen's "Cadillac Ranch," and the Tampa Bay Bandits, a U.S.
Football League team in which he had an ownership stake, were named for the
movie.)
Smokey spawned two sequels, and Reynolds went on to work again with
Needham in The Cannonball Run (1981), another fun-filled action film that
spawned another franchise. His other high-octane films included Sharky's Machine
(1981) and two movies as ex-con Gator McClusky. In Smokey, Reynolds starred alongside Sally Field, and the two were an
item for some time. He also had relationships with the likes of Dinah Shore (20
years his senior), Inger Stevens, Chris Evert, Hawn and Farrah Fawcett in his book.
"There are times in your life that are so indelible, they never
fade away. They stay alive, even forty years later," Field said in a
statement. "My years with Burt never leave my mind. He will be in my
history and my heart for as long as I live. Rest, Buddy."
Reynolds was married to British actress Judy Carne (famous for NBC's
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) from 1963-66 and then to Loni Anderson, the
voluptuous blonde best known for the CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, from
1988-93. Both marriages were tempestuous, and his divorce with Anderson was
particularly messy. After a string of big-screen failures and the cancellation of his ABC
private detective series B.L. Stryker, Reynolds rejuvenated his career by
starring in the 1990-94 CBS sitcom Evening Shade, created by Harry Thomason and
Linda Bloodworth-Thomason.
He won an Emmy Award in 1991 for best actor in a comedy series for
playing Woodrow "Wood" Newton, a former Pittsburgh Steelers
quarterback who returns to his small-town home in Arkansas to coach a woeful
high school team.
"My dad was my hero, but he never acknowledged any of my
achievements," he wrote in his memoir. "I always felt that no amount
of success would make me a man in his eyes."
Then known as Buddy Reynolds, he played halfback at Palm Beach High
School, where his teammate was future New York Yankees manager Dick Howser,
then suited up at Florida State, where Lee Corso, later a college coach and
ESPN analyst, played on both sides of the ball. But he suffered a knee injury
as a sophomore, and that was it for football and Florida State.
He met Needham on that show, and the stuntman would double for him on
projects through the years. Reynolds is referenced in "The Unknown Stuntman,"
the theme song from the 1980s ABC series The Fall Guy, and he played an aging
stuntman in Needham's second film, Hooper (1978). Reynolds joined Gunsmoke for its eighth season in 1962 as Quint Asper,
a half-Comanche who becomes the Dodge City blacksmith. He played the title
warrior in the 1966 spaghetti Western Navajo Joe, was an Iroquois who worked as
a New York City detective in the short-lived ABC series Hawk and portrayed a
Mexican revolutionary in 100 Rifles (1969). Reynolds got another shot at toplining his own ABC show, playing
homicide detective Dan August in a 1970-71 Quinn Martin production, but the
series was axed after a season.
Reynolds appeared often on NBC's The Tonight Show, and in 1972 he
became the first non-comedian to sit in for Johnny Carson as guest host
(Reynolds' first guest that night was his ex-wife, Carne; they hadn't spoken in
six years, and she made a crack about his older girlfriend Shore). He and
Carson once engaged in a wild and improvised whipped-cream fight during a
taping, and he got to show a side of him the public never knew.
"Before I met Johnny, I'd played a bunch of angry guys in a
series of forgettable action movies, and people didn't know I had a sense of humour,"
he wrote. "My appearances on The Tonight Show changed that. My public
image went from a constipated actor who never took a chance to a cocky,
wisecracking character."
Reynolds showed that lighter side when he played a sperm in Woody
Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (1972), and he lampooned
his lavish Hollywood lifestyle in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie (1976). He was not
above making fun of himself and his toupee.
With his divorce from Anderson and bad restaurant investments
contributing to more than $10 million in debts, Reynolds filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection in 1996 and came out of it two years later. In recent
years, he sold properties in Florida, including his fabled 160-acre ranch — The
Allman Brothers recorded an album there in the 1990s — and auctioned off
personal belongings.
"My uncle was not just a movie icon; he was a generous,
passionate and sensitive man who was dedicated to his family, friends, fans and
acting students," his niece, Nancy Lee Hess, said in a statement.
"He has had health issues; however, this was totally unexpected.
He was tough. Anyone who breaks their tailbone on a river and finishes the
movie is tough. And that’s who he was. My uncle was looking forward to working
with Quentin Tarantino [In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood] and the amazing cast
that was assembled."
Survivors also include his son, Quinton; he and Anderson adopted him
when he was 3 days old.
Despite the ups and downs of a Hollywood life, Reynolds seemed to have
no regrets.
"I always wanted to experience everything and go down
swinging," he wrote in the final paragraph of his memoir. "Well, so
far, so good. I know I'm old, but I feel young. And there's one thing they can
never take away: Nobody had more fun than I did."
Borys Kit contributed to this report.
Our thoughts
are with Burt’s family and friends,
RIP Bandit
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