Actor Burt Reynolds dead at age 82
Burt Reynolds, who reigned as Hollywood’s wisecracking, good ol’ boy box-office champ in the late 1970s and early ‘80s in movies such as “Smokey and the Bandit” and “The Cannonball Run” and made pop culture history as Cosmopolitan magazine’s first nude male centerfold, has died. He was 82.
Reynolds died suddenly Thursday, according to his niece Nancy Lee Hess.
“My uncle was not just a movie icon; he was a generous, passionate and sensitive man, who was dedicated to his family, friends, fans and acting students,” Hess said in a statement issued through Reynolds’ agent.
“He has had health issues, however, this was totally unexpected. He was tough. Anyone who breaks their tail bone on a river and finishes the movie is tough. And that’s who he was.”
Neither Hess nor Reynolds’ agent, Erik Kritzer, confirmed the actor’s cause of death.
For five years in a row — 1978 through 1982 — Reynolds was the No. 1 box-office star, in movies such as “Hooper,” “Starting Over,” “The End,” “Sharky’s Machine” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”
Dolly Parton, Reynolds’ costar in 1982’s “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” expressed her grief Thursday through a statement: “Oh, how sad I am today along with Burt’s millions of fans around the world as we mourn one of our favorite leading men,” she said.
His more-than-50-year career was well known for its peaks and valleys, as Reynolds was the first to concede.
“My career is not like a regular chart . ... Mine looks like a heart attack,” he cracked in a 2001 interview with Canada’s Globe and Mail. “I counsel scores of young actors because they know I’ve stepped in just about every land mine along the way I could.”
Reynolds had been in Hollywood working in television and films for more than a decade before landing his breakout movie role in “Deliverance,” the 1972 drama directed by John Boorman about four men whose weekend canoe trip down a treacherous river in backwoods Georgia takes an unexpectedly dark turn.
As the macho leader of the group who proves deadly with a hunting bow, Reynolds gained widespread notice for his strong performance in the film, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best picture.
But by then, as Reynolds told the Los Angeles Times in 1972, he had decided to change his screen image “from standing around looking virile and mean” and instead “take the risks and be funny about it.”
And it was the charming, lighter side of Reynolds, amply visible to the public during his frequent talk show appearances at the time, that turned him into a superstar.
The dark-haired, ruggedly handsome actor, with his trademark mustache and distinctively infectious laugh, went on to star in a string of films, including “White Lightning,” “The Longest Yard,” “At Long Last Love,” “Lucky Lady,” “Hustle,” “Gator,” “Nickelodeon” and “Semi-Tough.”
“In most of his roles,” Playboy magazine observed in 1979, “he portrays a kind of macho pixy who often doesn’t take himself or even the film he’s in very seriously.”