Sex, smirk, swagger charmed fans
With roguish, casual cool, he ruled the ’70s
Burt Reynolds, who balanced rugged toughness and good-ol’-boy appeal to achieve superstardom in films such as “Deliverance,” “The Longest Yard” and “Smokey and the Bandit,” died at age 82.
Reynolds’ niece, Nancy Lee Hess, confirmed the news Thursday in a state- ment to USA TODAY. “My uncle was not just a movie icon; he was a generous, passionate and sensitive man,” she wrote. “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.”
With his devil-may-care attitude, a permanent twinkle in his eyes and his trademark mustache, Reynolds was a bankable box-office star of the 1970s
and early ’80s – accumulating a string of box-office hits and unforgettable appearances on “The Tonight Show” with his dear friend Johnny Carson.
He earned his first and only Oscar nomination in 1998 for Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights.” He flaunted his sex appeal in 1972, posing rakishly on a bearskin rug as the first male nude (well, nearly) centerfold in Cosmopolitan magazine – a choice he later described as “one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made.”
Reynolds was also known for dramas off the screen: his high-profile lost love with his “Smokey” co-star Sally Field and a messy divorce from actress Loni Anderson, a string of box-office clunkers that tanked his career and wellchronicled financial problems.
Reynolds re-emerged this year for a personal project, “The Last Movie Star,” which looked at the life of a faded star filled with regret and longing, an exaggerated version of the actor who was content to live a mostly quiet life in Jupiter, Florida.
“I’ve been very, very lucky through ups and downs. When you crash and burn, you have to pick yourself up and go on and hope to make up for it,” Reynolds told USA TODAY in March. “Along the way, I’ve met some wonderful people. And you always run into some jerks. But that would be the same if you were working for the Ford Motor Co.
“It’s a tough business. Very tough. But I always tried to leave a good impression wherever we shot, and I didn’t leave any buildings burning or anything,” he added with a smile. “And I’ve had a good time through it all.”
Reynolds was born Feb. 11, 1936, in Lansing, Michigan, and moved to Riviera, Florida, where his war-hero father, Milo, was the chief of police. The young Reynolds often clashed with his tough dad, who arrested and locked him up for fighting when he was a teenager.
Reynolds excelled in football and was a star halfback at Florida State University before an injury derailed his career. He moved into movie stunts and eventually small acting parts.
In 1972, he made his breakthrough performance in the Oscar-nominated “Deliverance,” the film he remained the most proud of throughout his career.
“It didn’t make as much money as a lot of the others,” Reynolds said. “But it was a very difficult picture to make. And it was done with a crazy leading man.”
Reynolds insisted that it was his frequent appearances with Carson on the “Tonight Show,” including serving as host in Carson’s absence, that shot him to true stardom. “My career was going along OK. But it didn’t really take off until the ‘Tonight Show.’ And that was because of the way Johnny treated me,” Reynolds said. “The public treated guests the way he treated you.”
“There are times in your life that are so indelible, they never fade away. They stay alive, even forty years later. My years with Burt never leave my mind,” Field said in a statement. “He will be in my history and my heart, for as long as I live. Rest, Buddy.”