Burt Reynolds
Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018) was an American actor and considered a sex symbol and icon of 1970s American popular culture.[3][4] Reynolds first rose to prominence when he starred in television series such as Gunsmoke (1962–1965), Hawk (1966), and Dan August (1970–1971). He had leading roles in films such as Navajo Joe (1966) and 100 Rifles (1969), and his breakthrough role was as Lewis Medlock in Deliverance (1972).
Burt Reynolds
September 6, 2018 (aged 82)
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles
Actor
1958–2018
- Dinah Shore (1971–1975)
- Sally Field (1976–1980)
1
Reynolds played leading roles in a number of subsequent box-office hits such as White Lightning (1973), The Longest Yard (1974), Smokey and the Bandit (1977) (which started a six-year box-office reign), Semi-Tough (1977), The End (1978), Hooper (1978), Starting Over (1979), Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981), Sharky's Machine (1981), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), and Cannonball Run II (1984), several of which he directed.[5][6] He was nominated twice for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
Reynolds was voted the world's number one box-office star from 1978 to 1982 in the annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll, a record that he shares with Bing Crosby. After a number of box-office failures, Reynolds returned to television, starring in the sitcom Evening Shade (1990–1994) which won a Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. His performance as high-minded pornographer Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997) brought him renewed critical attention, earning Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, with nominations for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.[7][8][9]
Career[edit]
Theater[edit]
The Florida State Drama Award included a scholarship to the Hyde Park Playhouse, a summer stock theater, in Hyde Park, New York. Reynolds saw the opportunity as an agreeable alternative to more physically demanding summer jobs, but did not yet see acting as a possible career. While working there, Reynolds met Joanne Woodward, who helped him find an agent.
"I don't think I ever actually saw him perform", said Woodward later. "I knew him as this cute, shy, attractive boy. He had the kind of lovely personality that made you want to do something for him."[24]
He was cast in Tea and Sympathy at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. After his Broadway debut in Look, We've Come Through, he received favorable reviews for his performance and went on tour with the cast, driving the bus as well as appearing on stage.[26]
After the tour, Reynolds returned to New York and enrolled in acting classes, along with Frank Gifford, Carol Lawrence, Red Buttons and Jan Murray.
"I was a working actor for two years before I finally took my first real acting class (with Wynn Handman at the Neighborhood Playhouse)", he said. "It was a lot of technique, truth, moment-to-moment, how to listen, improv."[24]
After a botched improvisation in acting class, Reynolds briefly considered returning to Florida, but soon gained a part in a revival of Mister Roberts, in which Charlton Heston played the starring role.
After the play closed, the director, John Forsythe, arranged a film audition with Joshua Logan for Reynolds. The film was Sayonara (1957). Reynolds was told he could not be in the film because he looked too much like Marlon Brando. Logan advised Reynolds to go to Hollywood, although Reynolds did not feel confident enough to do so.[27] (Another source says Reynolds did a screen test after studio talent agent Lew Wasserman saw the effect Reynolds had on secretaries in his office but the test was unsuccessful.[28])
He worked in a variety of jobs, such as waiting tables, washing dishes, driving a delivery truck and as a bouncer at the Roseland Ballroom. Reynolds wrote that, while working as a dockworker, he was offered $150 to jump through a glass window on a live television show.[29]
Death and tributes[edit]
Reynolds died of a heart attack at the Jupiter Medical Center in Jupiter, Florida, on September 6, 2018, at the age of 82.[111][112] His ex-wife Loni Anderson and their son Quinton held a private memorial service for Reynolds at a funeral home in North Palm Beach, Florida, on September 20. Those in attendance included Sally Field,[113] FSU coach Bobby Bowden, friend Lee Corso, and quarterback Doug Flutie.[114] Reynolds' body was cremated and his ashes were given to his niece, Nancy Lee Brown Hess.[115] He was subsequently interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on February 11, 2021.[116] In September 2021, a bronze bust of Reynolds was placed at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.[117]
On the day of Reynolds' death, Antenna TV, which airs The Tonight Show nightly, aired an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from February 11, 1982, featuring an interview and a This Is Your Life-style skit with Reynolds. The local media in Atlanta and elsewhere in the state noted on their television news programs that evening that he was the first to make major films in Georgia, all of which were successful, which helped make the state one of the top filming locations in the country.[118][119][120][121] The Florida State football team honored Reynolds with helmet decals reading "BAN ONE", in the design and style of the license plate of the Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit, plus Reynolds' signature, worn for the rest of the 2018 season.[122] His niece, Nancy Lee Hess, produced a 2020 biography and documentary about Reynolds titled I Am Burt Reynolds.[123][124][125]
Legacy and appraisal[edit]
During the height of his career, Reynolds was considered a male sex symbol and icon of American masculinity. Stephen Dalton wrote in The Hollywood Reporter that Reynolds "always seemed to embody an uncomplicated, undiluted, effortlessly likable strain of American masculinity that was driven much more by sunny mischief than angsty machismo."[3] Reynolds's roles were often defined by his larger-than-life physicality and masculinity, contrasted with juvenile but self-aware humor.[1] Though he was not considered a serious dramatic actor during his heyday, his later career was defined by performances that often reflected on his own reputation, creating what Dalton called "sophisticated, soulful performances."[3]
Michael Chiklis has credited Reynolds for rescuing his acting career when Reynolds hired him for a role in B.L. Stryker after Chiklis was "blackballed" for his involvement in portraying John Belushi in the film Wired (1989).[126]