BYE, BANDIT
Burt Reynolds, the macho, mustachioed “Smokey and the Bandit” star, has died. He was 82.
The Oscar-nominated movie star died Thursday morning in Florida, his manager Erik Krtizer told The Hollywood Reporter.
Reynolds was best known as an action star, often preferring to do his own stunts, but balanced his resume with romantic, comedic and dramatic parts, too, earning his lone Oscar nomination in 1998 for “Boogie Nights.”
The actor played porn director Jack Horner in the Paul Thomas Anderson film, though he later famously claimed to “hate” Anderson, and said he never watched “Boogie Nights” all the way through.
Still, Reynolds had plenty of other roles in which he could revel — the Michigan native was the top-grossing movie star in Hollywood for each year from 1978 to 1982.
In that span, he released films “Starting Over,” “The Cannonball Run,” “Rough Cut,” and a sequel to “Smokey and the Bandit.”
It was the original “Smokey” in 1977 that Reynolds is best known for — a Hal Needham action comedy flick that featured Reynolds as Bo “Bandit” Darville, a man hired to transport 400 cases of beer from Texas to Atlanta in 28 hours in his black Pontiac Trans-Am.
The film was a massive success, and earned $126 million at the box office, which today would equate to $508 million.
It also proved a hit in Reynolds’ personal life. He co-starred with actress Sally Field in “Smokey,” sparking a five-year relationship between the two.
He would later call Field “the one that got away.”
Prior to his successful late ’70s and early ’80s run at the box office, Reynolds was a TV star, appearing in shows like “Riverboat,” “Hawk” and “Dan August.”He also appeared on the popular series “Gunsmoke” in the early ’60s for 50 episodes as Quint Asper.
The actor was born on Feb. 11, 1936, in Lansing, Mich., and at age 10 moved with his family to Florida, where he played high school football. He attended Florida State University on a football scholarship, and eventually set out for New York City to pursue a career in acting.
After appearing in several plays, Reynolds began booking TV roles, and soon broke through with his role in the 1972 thriller “Deliverance.”