Private funeral for Burt Reynolds held at West Palm Beach church
WEST PALM BEACH — A private funeral service marked by scripture, music and celebrities took place Wednesday for Burt Reynolds, Palm Beach County’s homegrown movie star.
Reynolds, who came to the county as a youth and kept a connection to it throughout his career as an actor and director in Hollywood, died Sept. 6 at age 82.
Wednesday’s service — “A Celebration of the Life of Burt Reynolds,” according to a program posted online — took place at Family Church Downtown on South Flagler Drive, just south of the Royal Park Bridge.
According to the program,
there were musical performances by guitarist Cooper Getschal and pianist Copeland Davis. Broadway performer Avery Sommers sang “Amazing Grace” and the vocalist Ariel Hermoso “I Can Only Imagine.” Jimmy Scroggins, the church’s longtime pastor, offered a message of hope.
Mo Mustaine, a longtime friend of Reynolds, offered his recollection on the actor’s life and the actor and producer Todd Vittum gave a eulogy.
A person who attended the service said celebrities in attendance included rapper and reality TV star Vanilla Ice, who lives in Wellington, and actor Judge Reinhold, who once performed at Reynolds’ theater at Indiantown Road and U.S. 1 in Jupiter.
Reynolds’ first brushes with fame came at Palm Beach High School, where he was a standout on the football team before going on to play halfback at Florida State University.
Besides the dinner theater,
which operated from 1979 to 1996 and is now the Maltz Jupiter Theater, Reynolds kept homes in northern Palm Beach County and married actress Loni Anderson in 1988 at his ranch just west of Jupiter.
He later lived in a home in Martin County just north of the Palm Beach County border.
According to the program, Reynolds’ family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Palm Beach County Film and Television Commission, Burt Reynolds Scholarship Fund, 2195 Southern Blvd., Suite 520, West Palm Beach, FL 33406, marked to the atten- tion of Michele Hilery.