BURT REYNOLDS
THE ON- AND OFFSCREEN COUPLE STOLE OUR HEARTS — AND THEIR LOVE AFFAIR LIVES ON
The Smokey and the Bandit star still carries a torch for Sally Field.
Burt Reynolds wanted Sally Field to be his leading lady in 1977’s Smokey and the Bandit, but the studio initially said no. “I was told she was not sexy — she was the Flying Nun,” Burt recalls exclusively to Closer. “I told them, ‘Trust me, talent is sexy. She is talented and sexy.’ ”
He was right, of course. Fueled by Burt and Sally’s chemistry, the car-chase comedy raced to the top of the box office when it was released in May 1977 — toppling Star Wars! Forty years later, it remains a beloved favorite among fans, with anniversary screenings taking place nationwide (see fathomevents .com for showtimes). “It stands the test of time — it’s a funny picture,” says Burt, who gives much of the credit for the film’s success to his co-star: “I fell in like with Sally.”
Truth be told, it was much more serious than that. “You saw Burt and Sally fall in love for real in the movie,” Ellyn Needham, the widow of the film’s director, Hal Needham, tells Closer. “There are certain scenes where you can just see it happening. It’s so sweet.”
They soon took their place among the pantheon of great screen couples. “You can see a direct line between Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night and Burt and Sally in Smokey and the Bandit,” says Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz. But their real-life romance didn’t have a happy ending.
“What I look for in a man is humor, honesty and a mustache.”
— Sally
A BUMPY ROMANTIC RIDE
Sally started to leave behind her squeakyclean image from Gidget and The Flying Nun by playing a mentally ill young woman in the 1976 TV movie Sybil, but the heat she generated with Burt in Smokey really put it in the rearview mirror. She was suddenly seen as a bankable movie star, and she used that clout to tackle meatier roles, like Norma Rae, which won her an Oscar in 1980.
Burt wasn’t in the audience that night, and some speculated he might have been jealous of Sally’s success, especially since he’d been denied an Oscar nomination for his well-reviewed performance in Starting Over. But that wasn’t the case, according to Sally. “What happened was I got mad at him for various and sundry reasons,” she says. “I just simply threw the dishes, packed my bag and left. I was just like a high school kid: ‘I don’t want to go with you!’ ”
The couple worked through conflicts like this as they made more movies together (see sidebar). “Relationships have to go through rough times,” Sally says. “If they’re important to you, you make those rough times make it better.” Yet after four films and five years together, Burt and Sally split — and to this day, he blames himself: “I don’t know why I was so stupid. Men are like that, you know. You find the perfect person, and then you do everything you can to screw it up.”
When he was promoting his 2015 autobiography, But Enough About Me, Burt called Sally “the love of my life,” sparking fans’ hopes for a reconciliation, since both are currently unmarried. Alas, that was not to be, as Sally, 70, declined to respond to his declaration. But Burt, 81, still harbors warm feelings for his onetime real-life love interest. “Sally went on to win so many awards for her work in films and was just nominated for a Tony,” he tells Closer, referring to her Broadway turn in The Glass Menagerie. “I was — and still am — very proud of her.” — Bruce Fretts, with reporting by
Amanda Champagne-Meadows
“We were having a really good time,
and it shows.”
— Burt, to Closer