My rollicking carcrash of a life
The lost fortune. The broken marriages. The iconic roles he passed up. THAT career wrecking centrefold. After his death at 82, the painfully — and hilariously — honest memoir that reveals how Burt Reynolds blew it all
When I was growing up, the most important thing in my life was to please my father. Big Burt, as he was called, was my hero — but he never acknowledged any of my own achievements.
no amount of success, I felt, could make me a man in his eyes. not playing in the university football team, not even hollywood stardom.
Big Burt was a 6ft 2in war hero. he earned a chestful of medals for taking part in the normandy invasion and the Battle of the Bulge, and by the time he came home — three years after the war ended — he was a colonel.
When I was 12, he finally came home, looking smashing in his uniform. After embracing my mother, he kissed my sister on the cheek, then gravely shook my hand. ‘You look good, son,’ he said. ‘Thank you, sir.’ We didn’t go in for a lot of emotion in our family, and he never once talked about his war experiences. not long afterwards, we settled in Palm Beach County, Florida, where he became the chief of police.
I was a wild kid, a hell-raiser. I’d dive off 50ft-high bridges, get into lots of fights and swim in dangerous swamps. I’d see little alligator eyes and think: this could be trouble. That’s when I learned how to swim really fast.
Whenever I crossed a line, it would be the same thing every time: Dad would take his belt off, I’d bend over and he’d hit me hard — but I never yelled or cried.
I’m glad he beat me, because it was a real deterrent: I never committed the same offence twice.
Once, I made the mistake of sassing [being cheeky to] my mother, who was a hard-working nurse, in front of Big Burt. I think I said something flip like: ‘Oh, yeah?’
Without saying a word, Dad picked me up and deposited me in the hall closet. Unfortunately, the door to the closet was closed at the time.
Another time, a bunch of us were arrested for fighting and the police put us in a big holding cell. My dad came in and told the other kids, one by one: ‘Your father’s here, you can go home.’
Then he looked at me and said: ‘Your father didn’t show up.’
I was in that cell all night. And all the next day, with every drunk and vagrant in town. I stayed in that damn cell for two days.
I know that sounds harsh, but it straightened me out. I never got in trouble after that. EvenTUAllY,
I went to Florida State University, where I played in their American football team; I was pretty good and hoping to make a career in the sport. Those dreams ended shortly after midnight one Christmas eve.
I was driving home in Dad’s Buick when I suddenly slammed into a truck. A bunch of geniuses were loading stolen concrete blocks onto a big flatbed truck they’d parked across the road. All that concrete came clunking down on the car.
The first cop on the scene was Clark Bibler, a lieutenant on the force with Dad.
‘Jesus Christ, what are you doin’ in there?’ he said, peering into the wreckage. All I could say was: ‘Don’t tell my dad!’ ‘I’ve got a feeling he’s gonna know,’ said Clark.
Dad’s big old Buick was now the size of a Mini Cooper. Somehow, they got me out in one piece, but as soon as I stood up I coughed up blood and blacked out.
After the doctor at the local hospital checked my blood pressure, he turned to a nurse and said: ‘Prep him — this boy is dying.’
That night, he performed emergency surgery to remove my spleen. During the operation, I heard the nurse say: ‘We’re losing him!’ — and I did, in fact, flatline.
I clearly remember going down a tunnel towards a white light and hearing myself saying: ‘F*** this! I’m going back!’
The doctor climbed on top of me and began giving me CPR. It wasn’t common practice in those days, but it saved my life.
I woke up on Christmas Day with 59 stitches in my stomach, lucky to have lost only my spleen and my budding football career.
Once I was back on my feet, I transferred to Palm Beach Junior College, intending to become a parole officer. It was there I met a teacher who changed my life.
Watson B. Duncan III, an english professor, didn’t just recite the words of Milton and Shakespeare; he breathed life into them with his booming voice. every class was a performance.
One day, he told me: ‘ Buddy, you’re going to be an actor.’
‘Professor Duncan,’ I said, ‘you’re a smart man, but I have no talent and no interest in being an actor.
‘Tomorrow we’re reading for a play,’ he replied. ‘Be in my office at three o’clock.’
To cut a long story short, I ended up as the lead. Then I won a drama scholarship to act at the hyde Park Playhouse in new York. It was no big deal: I had a walk-on part and was listed in the programme as an apprentice. But there were two older women in the company — probably in their 30s — who took an interest in me.
To a 19-year- old, they seemed impossibly sophisticated, and yet they took me out every night after the show. holy cow, I thought: if this is showbusiness, count me in!
Big Burt, however, thought acting was for sissies. later, whenever I mentioned the name of one of my friends, he’d say: ‘Is he an actor or does he work?’
even after I’d done a Tv series, all he could say was: ‘When are you going to get a real job?’
he never acknowledged that I was any good, yet all the officers under him were proud of me. I once asked them: ‘Does he ever talk about me?’ ‘nope.’
he never told me he loved me, either. But just before Big Burt died, at the age of 95, he did finally say that he was proud of me. And that was enough. IT TOOk me a while to get anywhere. I had the usual jobs — waiting tables, bar-tending, unloading cargo ships — and when I was really broke, I made ‘tomato soup’ from hot water and ketchup.
In 1957, after I landed a part in a Broadway revival of Mister Roberts, the playwright William Inge came backstage one night and invited me to a party.
There were only two people there: Mr Inge and an absolutely stunning lady. he introduced us, but I didn’t catch her name.
She was wearing a silk blouse with nothing underneath — highly unusual for the Fifties. And when she caught me staring at her beautiful breasts, she just smiled and said: ‘My eyes are up here.’ ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said.
She was a mature woman, with a low, kind of whisky voice, but she had a youthful energy about her. And she was funny, not only laughing at my jokes but making me laugh, too.
I was bowled over. Other guests arrived and tried to engage with her, but she wasn’t interested: whenever I moved away, she followed me.
After the others had left, she asked me to tell her my life story. I began blabbering. I heard myself talking nonsense, as if I were outside my body, watching this idiot make a complete mess of things.
eventually, I jumped up and said I was leaving. But as I started for the door, she touched my arm and said: ‘ Why don’t you come home with me?’ Appallingly, I started to
giggle. Then I blurted out: ‘ I’m just down the street at the hotel and I’ll just go on home by myself. But thank you, though.’
I didn’t find out till the next day that I’d just said no to Greta Garbo, who was 31 years older than me. PeoPle used to follow me on the street, thinking I was Marlon Brando. At first, it got on my nerves, and then it just flat p****d me off.
even his sister, Jocelyn, whom I worked with on a TV show, would tell me how much I looked like him — and I’d say: ‘Thank you, I guess.’ The main reason I grew a moustache was to stop those kind of comments.
As for Marlon himself, I heard that he had a problem with me. For an episode of The Twilight Zone, I’d once played an annoying method actor who’d been a big hit in A Streetcar Named Desire [like Brando]. And Marlon didn’t like it.
But he was curious about me, according to the actress Rita Moreno — a great broad who worked with me on the TV series B.l. Stryker. While I was still new in Hollywood, she was dating Brando — and she talked me into going to a party at his house.
When I finally met the great man, he was rude. He didn’t even get up from his chair; he just kind of looked away and mumbled something. After about two minutes of small talk, he accused me of trying to capitalise on my resemblance to him.
‘I’ll tell you right now: I’m not having surgery because you don’t like the way I look,’ I said. ‘But I promise not to get fat.’
That ended the conversation, and we never spoke again. IF I had to put only one of my movies in a time capsule, it would be Deliverance (1972). It’s the best film I’ve ever done and it proved I could act.
But I’ll match my record of missed opportunities with anyone in the business.
I backed away from the original Batman TV series (1966-68), for instance, because I didn’t think it was a star- making part. I wouldn’t have been nearly as good as Adam West — though, as it happened, Batman didn’t do much for his career. Then I was up for the part of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972), but someone told me that Marlon Brando threatened to quit if I came on board.
There was worse. When Sean Connery held out for more money to play James Bond, the producer Cubby Broccoli came to me and said: ‘We want you to play Bond.’
In my infinite wisdom, I said: ‘ An American can’ t play him. The public won’t accept it.’ For a long time afterwards, I’d wake up every morning in a sweat, muttering: ‘Bond, James Bond!’
I was the first choice for the part of John McClane in Die Hard (1988), but I passed on that, too. That’s oK. I don’t regret turning down anything Bruce Willis took.
I declined the Richard Gere role in Pretty Woman (1990). Then I watched it the other night and thought: ‘ Damn, Julia Roberts! What the hell was I thinking?’
Milos Forman wanted me as his first choice to play R.P. McMurphy in one Flew