ONE OF BURT’S ‘KIDS’: HE PUT JUPITER ON THE MAP
When Andrew Kato had the chance to return to Jupiter after spending about 14 years in New York, the answer to the offer was an “easy yes,” he said.
After all, it’s what his idol Burt Reynolds had done, and he could do no less.
Kato is the producing artistic director and chief executive of the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, 1001 E. Indiantown Road, where he started as producing director in 2005. Continuing to work in the place where it all began for him is like “carrying the torch” — Reynolds’ torch — of giving back to one’s community.
Reynolds, who died Thursday at 82, was a large part of Kato’s formative years. He started working as a waiter in the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre when he was 15, to put himself through Florida State University, where Reynolds also went to school. The dinner theater eventually became the Maltz.
The theater saw such stars as Farrah Fawcett and Carol Burnett, in the tiny town that was dubbed “the miracle at a truck stop,” by Reynolds’ friend Charles Nelson Reilly.
Without Reynolds, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre wouldn’t be what it is today, Kato said, and he wouldn’t be who he is today.
Kato — speaking by phone to The Palm Beach Post in between auditions for “Mamma Mia!” and “Beauty and the Beast” immediately after the news of Reynolds’ death broke — said Reynolds’ “daunting” star power could render any young actor speechless. But it was his desire to take time out of his busy schedule, to help the up-and-comers and give back to his community that made him so relatable. His death was a shock.
“It’s a huge loss for our community,” Kato said.
“Burt is responsible for putting Jupiter on the map.”
The actor’s apprenticeship program led Kato to write his first musical in his early 20s. Kato said Reynolds could “light up a room anywhere he went,” but thinks the superstar’s No. 1 passion was teaching.
“When Burt was talking ... he would come up to me and put his arm around me and look at me from eye to eye,” he said. “He was really interested in everyone and what they were doing.”
Kato was grateful to have known him, to be taught by him and to have been loved by him in his unique way.
“He called everyone he loved his ‘kids,’” Kato said. “I was one of his kids, too.”