Fond Farewell: Reynolds' Wrap

When Mr. Burt Reynolds passed away on September 6th, 2018 at the age of eighty-two, the film world lost one of its most memorable male sex symbols and box office stars. In a career that spanned sixty years, he saw many highs and quite a few lows, all along maintaining a self-deprecating sense of humor that coexisted with a powerfully potent ego. He made all sorts of impressions, good and bad, and left a significant mark on the entertainment world, though to a generation of fans he will always be "Bandit" (actually Bo "Bandit" Darville) of Smokey and the Bandit (1977), a film which cost $4.3 million, but brought in $300 million! It was second only to a little flick called Star Wars (1977) in box office returns for that year. Reynolds was the early recipient of a tribute here, but in the wake of his passing, we offer a photo essay with moments from his life and career.

Born in Lansing, Michigan on February 11th, 1936, he would be raised from age ten in Florida, a state he would be closely identified with throughout his life. A talented football-playing fullback, he won a scholarship to Florida State University based on his gridiron skills.

Unfortunately, he was waylaid by, first, a severe knee injury followed by a serious car accident that cost him his spleen. He would stumble into a stage acting career as a result. His football career was behind him, though it was a motif he would return to for years to come in various projects. (This photo is from The Longest Yard, 1974, not his college days.)

Reynolds scored a huge hit with The Longest Yard (1974) and later made Semi-Tough (1977) opposite Kris Kristofferson.

Reynolds had an acting mentor at FSU who cast him in Outward Bound and encouraged him to pursue the craft professionally. He did so, winning a role in Charlton Heston's Broadway production of Mister Roberts, which led to an audition for a role in the upcoming Sayonara (1957.) Unfortunately, his physical resemblance to the movie's star Marlon Brando wrecked his chances. (Brando, who Reynolds admired as most young actors did, would later crush his spirits by rebuffing him in public.)

Certainly poses like this (from 1961's Angel Baby, his movie debut) did nothing to cut down on comparisons to Brando. All through his career, Reynolds would grapple with typecasting and preconceived notions about his abilities in one form on another. An early stamp of "Brando doppleganger" was one of the first.

His resemblance to Hollywood's hottest actor helped win him a costarring part on the Darren McGavin TV series Riverboat.

However, it was a thoroughly miserable experience for him. He felt resentment from McGavin from the start, was bored with his role and departed the show after 20 episodes.

The huge western hit Gunsmoke was undergoing a cast shake-up with the pending departure of Dennis Weaver and new arrival of Ken Curtis, immortal as Festus. Reynolds joined the show as Quint Asper, a half-breed blacksmith, providing some handsome good looks and helping to bridge the transition of James Arness' sidekicks.

Reynolds initially stated that he would never leave Gunsmoke though, if he had stayed until it ended it would have been 1975! That's how enduring the old warhorse was. He did enjoy his character, however, and would never forget the name Quint.

Reynolds worked from 1962-1965 on Gunsmoke before landing a series of his own, the 1966 detective show Hawk. Reynolds, who had a bit of Cherokee blood, did himself no favors in accepting the role of a part-Indian policeman as it ultimately led to typecasting as a Native American and an endless string of jokes and jabs on TV talk shows.

Slightly more successful was his next show, Dan August (a Quinn Martin production), in which he played a more mainstream type of detective and was, in my estimation, at the peak of his handsomeness. The show ran from 1970-1971 and he was nominated for a Golden Globe, losing to Peter Graves of Mission: Impossible.

Throughout this television period, Reynolds was also making the occasional minor movie. He's seen here in Operation, C.I.A. (1965.) Other movies of this time include Armored Command (1961) and the infamous Navajo Joe (1966), which had him parading around in buckskin and a wispy brunette mullet.

Fortunately, there were other, better movies as well, including 100 Rifles (1969) and Sam Whiskey (1969), but despite this level of success, something was missing. He was pretty much spinning his wheels in a career that was lacking trajectory. In 1972, this would all change in an explosive way. The key to his success at becoming a household name lay in his decision to get naked...

In what he always believed would be a lark and a bit of amusing public exposure, Reynolds accepted Cosmopolitan magazine's offer (after a string of others passed on it) to become the first nude male centerfold of a mainstream magazine. Francesco Scavullo photographed his subject completely naked, but in the end editor Helen Gurley Brown chose this now-legendary shot with his genitals obscured. The result was a national sensation which came close to obscuring everything else he did for a time! 

Many felt that one of the casualties of his centerfold photo was his intense work in the disturbing outdoor drama Deliverance (1972.) It was speculated that his perception as a serious actor was compromised by his skin-baring pictorial and that it might have cost him an Oscar nomination.

If the Cosmo layout didn't do enough harm to his cred as a serious actor, then perhaps his 1972 book Hot Line: The Letters I Get... And Write, took up the slack! Peppered with suggestive, barely-clad pictures and teasing content, this was not the sort of person likely to be rewarded by a staid MPA membership.

True, nudity, even full frontal nudity, hadn't exactly done Albert Finney, Alan Bates, Oliver Reed and others any harm in their careers, but they were a) European and b) doing so in the name of serious drama, not having this sort of fun with it...

And Reynolds was having fun, starring in a variety of things from Fuzz (1972) to Shamus (1973) to White Lightning (1973.) He even had a comic cameo in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972.) A hiccup came during The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973), whose set was thrown into turmoil when costar Sarah Miles' unbalanced companion was found dead, with eyes on Reynolds after he'd told the guy off. It was ruled a suicide, however.

One of his big successes was 1974's The Longest Yard, in which his physique was once again on display, at least in the early moments. He was again nominated for a Golden Globe, but lost to Art Carney for Harry and Tonto.

His lean, hairy torso still made quite an impression, even prominently landing on the film's poster despite the fact that it was a prison football film! (You will notice a tendency with Burt's bare-chested photos and scenes for his lower right side to be obscured to a degree. There was a bit of a remaining scar from his accident as a youth.)

Reynolds had earned a reputation for playing rough-edged, easily-amused bad boys doing good. His face was becoming the face of the '70s and his movies generally scored huge success at the box office.

Few were as monumentally money-making as 1977's Smokey and the Bandit. In his black Trans Am, with a beer in one hand and costar Sally Field in the other, he won his way into the hearts of countless moviegoers. He also won a place in Field's heart.

The two became an item on-screen and off and wound up making several movies together including The End (1978), Hooper (1978) and Smokey and the Bandit II (1980.) The seemingly tight relationship ended in acrimony, though Reynolds would cite Field as the love of his life.

He'd been wed to Laugh-In's Judy Carne briefly (1963-65) in a union that was marked by discord and alleged abuse. The two seemingly mended fences on a much later talk show appearance, though this odd couple really never should have been.

One of Reynolds' highest profile relationships had been with TV variety show staple Dinah Shore. The May-December pairing was a major league subject for the gossip columns and grocery aisle rags for many a day.

They always seemed to be having a ball together, until they weren't... Still, he cited Shore as one of the greatest people he'd ever known.

Reynolds' second marriage came in 1988, though the couple had been together for five years prior. He and Loni Anderson (who adopted a son together, named Quint) made another camera-ready couple for the tabloids to cover, never more so than when they split in 1993 in a hugely bitter bust-up.

Regardless of his penchant for movies involving cars, Coors and cigars, Reynolds did repeatedly try to break free of such typecasting. It just tended to result in box office disaster such as when the classic movie lover attempted to star in an old-fashioned musical, At Long Last Love (1975.)

In 1976, he lampooned his image in Silent Movie, enjoying a shower that wound up including some sycophantic film producers who would do almost anything to get him to star in their epic!

He hit the acting re-set button with 1979's Starting Over, losing his trademark mustache in the bargain as he portrayed a recently-divorced man, tentatively negotiating the dating world. Nominated a third time for the Golden Globe, this time it went to Peter Sellers for Being There.

Reynolds had directed a couple of his own films (including Gator and The End) and with 1981's Sharky's Machine (a sort of updated rendition of Laura, 1944), he got some of his best notices from this period of time.

He returned to the musical genre once again (with very limited singing of his own) opposite Dolly Parton in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982.) The two became the face of this musical to many, though their personas were actually rather different from the folks who had originated the roles on Broadway. (Reynolds' role, in particular, had been played by the sixty-two year-old, gray-haired Henderson Forsythe.)

When I auditioned for, and won, the role in a local production (come on... you know I had to stick my fat face in here somewhere! LOL), I tried to add a dollop of Burt to my look, knowing it might tip the scales my way. The sheriff's song (not used in the movie) won me about the highest accolade one can get around here in community theatre.

Things had been rather hit and miss as of late for Reynolds. He'd turned down the Oscar-winning Jack Nicholson role in Terms of Endearment (1983) in order to do the execrable Stroker Ace (1983) for his buddy Hal Needham. His movies were either moderate hits or considered under-performing. And things were about to get worse...

Always judicious about on-screen nudity ever since the brouhaha over his Cosmo layout, Reynolds relented only once, offering up a distant rear view (observed by Julie Andrews) in The Man Who Loved Women (1983), directed by Blake Edwards.

Edwards then paired Reynolds with longtime friend and fellow superstar Clint Eastwood for the period action flick City Heat (1984.) The highly troubled production, in which Edwards was fired and replaced by Richard Benjamin, cost Reynolds his health when a "breakaway" chair turned out to be a regular metal one, shattering his jaw. This brought about one of his darkest periods as he lost 30 lbs and rumors of AIDS abounded. Though he continued to make movies, it would be a dozen years before a significant one came his way.

It had been fifteen years since Reynolds acted on television when he made a brief appearance on the hit comedy The Golden Girls, playing himself. Due to the endless reruns of the show, it's entirely possible that a generation of viewers ONLY know him from this! (I am not exaggerating when I tell you that four out of six, admittedly young, coworkers near me had never even heard of him when he died last week!)

In 1989, Reynolds came to series TV again with his detective show B.L. Stryker. As part of the rotating ABC Mystery Movie series, it was more like a series of telefilms than a standard hour-long show and he was able to fill it with pals like Dom DeLuise, with whom he shared a lengthy, wacky friendship.

Next, Reynolds did something completely unexpected. He traded in his action-adventure persona for that of a husband and father of four on a TV sitcom! Of course, the character was an ex-football player and the role tailor made to fit his skill set. Evening Shade ran from 1990-1994.

The series allowed Reynolds to work with a hand-picked gallery of industry friends and costars who had remained loyal to him in his darkest days and with who he enjoyed working immensely. Not only did he win a Golden Globe (along with two other nominations), but he also won an Emmy (along with one other nomination) for his work on the show. Things were looking up, it seemed.

In 1997, Reynolds accepted a role that he personally found distasteful, but which he knew would provide a meaty acting opportunity. He played a powerful porn purveyor in Boogie Nights and it won him an avalanche of positive reaction. He won the Golden Globe and, for the first time ever, received an Academy Award nomination. It looked as if he might finally win the industry's highest honor but in the end the voters gave the Oscar to Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting.

The latter part of Reynolds' career consisted mostly of showy supporting parts in movies of varying (sometimes dubious!) quality. He'd played a lascivious wacko in 1996's Striptease, essayed the role of Boss Hogg in the redux The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) and popped up in the remake of his hit forty years prior The Longest Yard (2005.)

One of Burt's more unsung talents was as a charming, wry, goofy game show panelist. He appeared time and again through the years on Hollywood Squares and even hosted his own show Win, Lose or Draw for two years. He was also an often unforgettable talk show guest.

Having lived the movie star lifestyle long after his hey day (including a bankruptcy), Reynolds never stopped working, no matter the project. Ill health, including heart issues, finally caught up with him when he died in Jupiter, Florida, a town he adored and where he helped to create the Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theater, a training ground for fledgling talent. The football player turned actor led a remarkable life and career, much of which is only touched upon in this farewell tribute.

The End!