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Actor:

Burt Reynolds

  • Born: Feb 11, 1936 in Waycross, Georgia
  • Occupation: Actor, Director
  • Active: '60s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Comedy, Action
  • Career Highlights: Boogie Nights, Deliverance, Starting Over
  • First Major Screen Credit: Angel Baby (1961)

Biography

Charming, handsome, and easy-going, lead actor and megastar Burt Reynolds originally hailed from Waycross, GA, and entered the world on February 11, 1936. He attended Florida State University on a football scholarship, and became an all-star Southern Conference halfback, but - faced with a knee injury and a debilitating car accident - switched gears from athletics to college drama. In 1955, he dropped out of college and traveled to New York, in search of stage work, but only turned up occasional bit parts on television, and for two years he had to support himself as a dishwasher and bouncer.

In 1957, Reynolds's ship came in when he appeared in a New York City Center revival of Mister Roberts; shortly thereafter, he signed a television contract. He sustained regular roles in the series Riverboat, Gunsmoke, Hawk, and Dan August. Although he appeared in numerous films in the 1960s, he failed to make a significant impression. In the early '70s, his popularity began to increase, in part due to his witty appearances on daytime TV talk shows. His breakthrough film, Deliverance (1972), established him as both a screen icon and formidable actor. That same year, Reynolds became a major sex symbol when he posed as the first nude male centerfold in the April edition of Cosmopolitan. He went on to become the biggest box-office attraction in America for several years - the centerpiece of films such as Hustle (1975), Smokey and the Bandit (1977) (as well as its two sequels), The End (1978), Starting Over (1979), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), and The Man Who Loved Women (1983). However, by the mid-'80s, his heyday ended, largely thanks to his propensity for making dumb-dumb bumper-smashing road comedies with guy pals such as Hal Needham (Stroker Ace, The Cannonball Run 2). Reynolds's later cinematic efforts (such as the dismal Malone (1987)) failed to generate any box office sizzle, aside from a sweet and low-key turn as an aging career criminal in Bill Forsyth's Breaking In (1989). Taking this as a cue, Reynolds transitioned to the small screen, and starred in the popular sitcom Evening Shade, for which he won an Emmy. He also directed several films, created the hit Win, Lose or Draw game show with friend Bert Convy, and established the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Florida.

In the mid-'90s, Reynolds ignited a comeback that began with his role as a drunken, right-wing congressman in Andrew Bergman's Striptease (1996). Although the film itself suffered from critical pans and bombed out at the box office, the actor won raves for his performance, with many critics citing his comic interpretation of the role as one of the film's key strengths. His luck continued the following year, when Paul Thomas Anderson cast him as porn director Jack Horner in his acclaimed Boogie Nights. Reynolds would go on to earn a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, and between the twin triumphs of Striptease and Nights, critics read the resurgence as the beginning of a second wind in the Deliverance star's career, ala John Travolta's turnaround in 1994's Pulp Fiction.

But all was not completely well chez Burt. A nasty conflict marred his interaction with Paul Thomas Anderson just prior to the release of Boogie Nights. It began with Reynolds's disastrous private screening of Nights; he purportedly loathed the picture so much that he phoned his agent after the screening and fired him. When the Anderson film hit cinemas and became a success d'estime, Reynolds rewrote his opinion of the film and agreed to follow Anderson on a tour endorsing the effort, but Reynolds understandably grew peeved when Anderson refused to let him speak publicly. Reynolds grew so infuriated, in fact, that he refused to play a role in Anderson's tertiary cinematic effort, 1999's Magnolia.

Reynolds also attempted - in 1998 - to launch his own talk program, The Burt Reynolds Show, on a country music cable station; the endeavor involved Burt sitting around a table with his buddies, such as Harry Dean Stanton, and chatting up a storm. Audiences did not take to this, however, and the network almost immediately cancelled the program. Cinematically, Reynolds's appearances in lackluster productions over the course of the next decade, such as the direct-to-video comedy Cloud Nine (where he plays a buffet connoisseur who organizes a bunch of female strippers into a professional volleyball team) and The Dukes of Hazzard, where Reynolds appears as Boss Hogg, drowned out the perceived "second wind" of the actor's career. Though Reynolds woould keep things fairly light the following year with a vocal contribution to Duck Dodgers, an appearance on the Freddie Prinze, Jr. sitcom Freddie, and the straight to video Ray Romano/Kevin James comedy Grilled, he returned to both drama and the big screen with a supporting performance in the musical drama Broken Bridges; a low-key tale of a fading country music star that served as a feature debut for real-life country music singer Toby Kieth.

The early 2000s did see Reynolds undertaking one extremely successful (if small-scale) endeavor. He authored and regularly performed a one-man show at his Florida-based theater. Promoted on his website, http://www.burtreynolds.com, as, "The laughs, the loves, the lies, the legends, the lies (not necessarily in that order)," the show involved Reynolds sitting before an audience and weaving tales from his boyhood and show-business past in Garrison Keillor mode. Audiences were mesmerized by this natural born storyteller.

Reynolds has gained fame -- and infamy -- for his offscreen life, as well. Married to Laugh-In regular Judy Carne from 1963 to 1966, he has been romantically linked with actresses Dinah Shore (who was twenty years his senior) and Sally Field, in addition to tennis star Chris Evert. He was also married from 1988 to 1993 to actress Loni Anderson; their union ended in one of the most widely publicized acrimonious divorces in Hollywood history.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

 
 
Filmography: Burt Reynolds

Without a Paddle

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Playboy: Sex at 24 Frames Per Second

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Johnson County War

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Snapshots

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Driven

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Tempted

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The Crew

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Founding Fathers: Rebels...With a Cause

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Founding Fathers: Taking Liberties

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Founding Fathers: You Say You Want a Revolution

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Founding Fathers: A Healthy Constitution

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The Final Hit

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Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business

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Mystery, Alaska

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Hostage Hotel

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Waterproof

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Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms

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Crazy Six

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Meet Wally Sparks

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Bean

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Boogie Nights

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Raven

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Frankenstein and Me

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Striptease

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Mad Dog Time

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Citizen Ruth

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The Cherokee Kid

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The Maddening

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Cop and a Half

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The Player

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Modern Love

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All Dogs Go to Heaven

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Breaking In

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Physical Evidence

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Rent-A-Cop

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Switching Channels

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Heat

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Malone

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Stick

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Uphill All the Way

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Cannonball Run II

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City Heat

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The Man Who Loved Women

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Smokey and the Bandit 3

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Stroker Ace

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Best Friends

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The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

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Paternity

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Sharky's Machine

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The Cannonball Run

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Rough Cut

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Smokey and the Bandit II

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Starting Over

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The End

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Hooper

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Semi-Tough

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Smokey and the Bandit

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Gator

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Silent Movie

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Hustle

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The Longest Yard

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The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing

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Shamus

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White Lightning

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Deliverance

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Fuzz

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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask

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Savage Run

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100 Rifles

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Shark!

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Un Dollaro a Testa

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Operation C.I.A.

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Quotes By: Burt Reynolds

Quotes:

"My movies were the kind they show in prisons and airplanes, because nobody can leave."

 
Wikipedia: Burt Reynolds
Burt Reynolds
Burt_Reynolds_1991_cropped.jpg
Burt Reynolds in 1991
Birth name Burton Leon Reynolds, Jr.
Born February 11 1936 (1936--) (age 71)
Flag_of_the_United_States.svg Birthplace disputed.[1]
Spouse(s) Judy Carne (June 28, 1963 - 1965) (divorced)

Loni Anderson (April 29, 1988 - March 7, 1995) (divorced)

Official site BurtReynolds.com

Burt Reynolds (born February 11, 1936) is an Oscar-nominated Emmy Award-winning American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Paul Crewe in the original version of The Longest Yard, Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, J.J. McClure in The Cannonball Run and Jack Horner in Boogie Nights.

Burt is one of America's most recognizable film and television personalities. With more than 90 feature film and 300 television episode credits, he was the number-one box-office attraction for five straight years (1978-82) a record no one else has ever achieved, with vehicles like Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run.

Early life

Childhood

He was born Burton Leon Reynolds, Jr.[2], the son of Fern (Miller), a former nurse, and Burton Reynolds, a police officer.[3] Reynolds' family lived in several Southern and Midwestern cities during his childhood, before settling in Riviera Beach, Florida.[3] Reynolds thought he was in paradise; he had access to the Everglades to the west, the shore of the Lake Worth Lagoon to the east, and further east, across the Blue Heron Boulevard bridge to Singer Island, the Atlantic Ocean. He was fascinated by the Conch fishermen and their families who made up most of the population of Riviera Beach.[4]

After two years Burt Senior's contractor job ended, and the Reynolds bought a lunch counter and sundry store next to the bridge to Singer Island. As the business was close to a large dock and some fish and shrimp packing houses, business was good. Soon after, Burt Senior was recruited as a police officer for Riviera Beach. When the police chief died a few years later, Burt Senior became the chief.[5]

As the Reynolds family home was at the north edge of Riviera Beach, Burt Junior attended school in Lake Park, just to the north of Riviera Beach. While Burt Junior was in seventh grade, the Palm Beach County School Board decided that there were too few seventh grade students in the school to justify a teacher's salary, and Burt was transferred to Central Junior High School (now Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts) in West Palm Beach. Burt felt lost at the big school, and started hanging out with greasers and skipping school. He also began showing off with dangerous stunts, such as diving off the top of a raised drawbridge, and jumping from an airboat onto the back of a running deer.[6]

When Burt Junior was twelve he became friends with Jimmy Hooks. After learning that Jimmy was being physically abused in his home, Burt Junior took Jimmy home with him and told his parents he wanted Jimmy to be his brother. The Reynolds took Jimmy in. The Reynolds officially adopted Jimmy Hooks years later, when he was in his twenties.[7]

When Burt Junior was fourteen he tried out for football team at Central Junior High. He had never played organized sports, but worked hard at practice, earned his letterman's sweater, and was named to the county all-star team. The next year, when Burt Junior entered high school, he made the varsity team, but did not have much opportunity to play. In his junior year Reynolds had more opportunity to play. Seeing his ability, and foreseeing that he was likely to receive scholarship offers, one of Reynolds coaches persuaded him to take the courses necessary to enter a college. In his senior year Reynolds was named First Team All State and All Southern as a fullback, and received multiple scholarship offers.[8]

College

Burt Reynolds at Florida State
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Burt Reynolds at Florida State

After graduating from Palm Beach High School in West Palm Beach, Florida, Reynolds attended Florida State University on a college football scholarship, becoming an all-star halfback. While at Florida State, Reynolds joined the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, the football team's fraternity of choice. He was anticipating a very good season his second year, with expectations of being named to All American teams, and an eventual career in professional football. In the first game of the season Reynolds tore the cartilage in his knee. He made the injury worse by trying to play again later in the game, and then again in a couple of games late in the season. On Christmas break that year, Reynolds ran his father's car up under a flatbed trailer that was sitting across a dark street. The car was wedged under the trailer, and it took rescuers seven and a half hours to remove Reynolds from the wreckage. He had multiple injuries, including his knee, shoulder, some broken ribs, and a ruptured spleen, the last of which was removed in emergency surgery.[9]

With his college football career ended, Reynolds considered becoming a police officer, but his father suggested that he finish college and become a parole officer. In order to keep up with his studies he began taking classes at Palm Beach Junior College (PBJC) in neighboring Lake Park. In his first term at PBJC Reynolds was in a class taught by Watson B. Duncan III. Duncan pushed Reynolds into trying out for a play he was producing, Outward Bound. He cast Reynolds in the lead, based on his impressions from listening to Reynolds read Shakespeare in class. Reynolds won the 1956 Florida State Drama Award for his performance in Outward Bound. Reynolds calls Duncan his mentor and the most-influential person in his life.[10]

Career

Acting

The Florida State Drama Award included a scholarship to the Hyde Park Playhouse, a summer stock theater, in Hyde Park, New York. Reynolds saw the opportunity as an agreeable alternative to more physically demanding summer jobs, but did not yet see acting as a career. While working at Hyde Park Reynolds met Joanne Woodward, who helped Reynolds find an agent, and be cast in Tea and Sympathy at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. Reynolds received favorable reviews for his performance in Tea and Sympathy. Reynolds then went on tour with Tea and Sympathy, driving the bus as well as appearing on stage.[11]

After the tour Reynolds returned to New York and enrolled in acting classes. His classmates included Frank Gifford, Carol Lawrence, Red Buttons and Jan Murray. After a botched improvisation in acting class, Reynolds briefly considered returning to Florida, but he soon got a part in a revival of Mister Roberts, with Charlton Heston as the star. After the play closed, the director, John Forsythe, arranged a movie audition with Josh Logan for Reynolds. The movie was Sayonara, and Reynolds was told he couldn't be in the movie because he looked too much like Marlon Brando. Logan advised Reynolds to go to Hollywood, but Reynolds did not feel confident enough to do so.[12]

Reynolds worked odd jobs while waiting for acting opportunities. He waited tables, washed dishes, drove a delivery truck and worked as a bouncer at the Roseland Ballroom. It was while working as a dockworker that Reynolds was offered $150 to jump through a glass window on a live television show.[13]

He made his Broadway debut in Look, We've Come Through. Reynolds first starred on television, in the 1950s series, Riverboat, and went on to appear in a number of other shows, including a role as blacksmith Quint Asper on Gunsmoke from 1962 to 1965.

His film debut was in 1961, in the movie Angel Baby. At the urging of friend Clint Eastwood, Reynolds used his TV fame to secure leading roles in overseas low budget films, commonly called "Spaghetti Westerns". (Eastwood advised Reynolds from experience, as he had done the same). Reynolds first Spaghetti Western, Navajo Joe, came out in 1966. These low budget starring roles established Reynolds as a bankable leading man in movies, and earned him starring roles in American big-budget motion pictures. His breakout performance in Deliverance in 1972 made him a star. The same year, Reynolds gained notoriety when he posed naked in the April (Vol. 172, No. 4) issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Reynolds claims he was offered the role of James Bond by producer Albert R. Broccoli, after Sean Connery left the franchise. Reynolds turned the role down, saying "An American can't play James Bond. It just can't be done."[14] In 1973, he released the album Ask Me What I Am. He would also sing in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

On March 15, 1978, Reynolds earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in the same year built a dinner theatre in Jupiter, Florida. His celebrity was such that he drew not only big-name stars to appear in productions but sell-out audiences as well. He sold the venue in the early 1990s.

In the 1980s, after Smokey and the Bandit, he became typecast in similar, less well-done and less successful movies. Comedian and actor Robert Wuhl, in a standup act in the late 80s, said that "Burt Reynolds makes so many bad movies, when someone else makes a bad movie Burt gets a royalty!" He had his hand at producing a television show with friend Bert Convy in 1987, Win, Lose or Draw. He even appeared as a celebrity gameplayer in a few episodes of the show.

During the first half of the 1990s, he was the star of the CBS television series Evening Shade, for which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (1991). Reynolds started a comeback with the movie Striptease in 1996, and the critically acclaimed Boogie Nights, in 1997, put his career back on track. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Boogie Nights and won a Golden Globe Award for the movie. He was considered a front-runner for the Supporting Oscar, but ultimately lost to Robin Williams, who won it for his role in Good Will Hunting.

In early 2000, he created and toured Burt Reynolds' One Man Show. In 2002, he lent his voice to the character Avery Carrington in the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

In 2005, he co-starred in two remakes: the first released was of The Longest Yard, this time with Adam Sandler playing the role of Paul Crewe, the role Reynolds had played in the 1974 original. This time around, Reynolds took on the role of Nate Scarborough. The second was of the hit 1980s TV series The Dukes of Hazzard, as Boss Hogg.

He starred in the audio book version of The Worst Case Scenario Handbook. In May 2006, Reynolds began appearing in Miller Lite beer commercials. In 2007 at the World Stuntman Awards he was awarded the Taurus Lifetime Achievement Award. While presenting him with the award Arnold Schwarzenegger referred to him as the greatest of the great.

Southern filmmaking

Although Reynolds had already made eleven films, his performance as Lewis, the macho Atlanta businessman in the 1972 film adaptation of James Dickey's novel Deliverance, signaled the beginning of his box-office popularity. Hailed as one of the year's best films, Deliverance is the story of four suburbanites' harrowing journey into Appalachian Georgia. Filmed on Georgia's Chattooga River, Deliverance also marked the beginning of Reynolds's devotion to making films in and about the South.

The following year Reynolds was persuaded to play the role of a moonshiner in the film White Lightning after the filmmakers promised to shoot in the South. White Lightning, which was filmed in Arkansas, broke attendance records nationwide, and the film's success encouraged Hollywood studios to make more southern films. In 1976 Reynolds both starred in and made his directorial debut with Gator, the sequel to White Lightning. Deciding to shoot Gator entirely in Georgia, Reynolds announced that “I have this violent urge to get behind the camera... I want to say some nice things about the South.”

In 1974 Reynolds starred in The Longest Yard, which was filmed at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville. In the film Reynolds portrays a former athletic star forced to compete in a life-and-death football game. Many inmates served as extras and helped to construct the sets, including a football field that was given to the prison after filming was complete. Governor Jimmy Carter played a key role in the orchestration of the project and, according to Reynolds, promised that he "would personally come in and take me out if anything happened." The film, remade in 2005 with Reynolds in the role of Coach Nate Scarborough was popular with audiences, but not with critics.

During the next few years Reynolds continued his pattern of choosing southern-themed films that were often shot, at least partially, in the South. In the 1975 film W. W. and the Dixie Dance Kings, filmed in Nashville, Tennessee, he plays one of several country musicians hoping for success with the Reynolds and Reed Grand Ole Opry. Two years later, Smokey and the Bandit, which also features the Georgia musician Jerry Reed, was released and is one of Reynolds's best-known and loved films. Filmed entirely in Georgia, the successful comedy was followed in 1980 by Smokey and the Bandit II, which was filmed partially in Georgia.

Reynolds's next film, The Cannonball Run 1981, was shot almost entirely in Georgia, referred to as "Burt's good luck state" by the director, Hal Needham. That same year Reynolds directed and starred in Sharky's Machine. Filmed entirely in Atlanta, the movie features Reynolds as a narcotics officer investigating the murder of a prostitute in the city.

During these years, Reynolds starred in a number of other notable films, including The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing 1973; Semi-Tough 1977; The End 1978, which he also directed; Starting Over 1979; and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas 1982, which was filmed mostly in Texas.[15]

Personal life

Relationships

At various points in his life, Reynolds was romantically involved with Dinah Shore, Sally Field, and Chris Evert.[16] His relationship with Shore garnered particular attention given the fact she was 20 years his senior. Reynolds was married to actress/comedienne Judy Carne from 1963 to 1965, and actress Loni Anderson from 1988 to 1993. E! Online reports that he dated Kate Edelman Johnson from 2003 to 2005.[17]

His autobiography, titled My Life, was published in 1994 with much writing help from his close personal friend, Al Glasgow.

Sports team owner

On July 3, 1982, Reynolds lived out one of his dreams by once again getting involved with a sport that still holds a certain soft spot in his heart, by becoming a co-owner of the Tampa Bay Bandits, a professional football team in the USFL. Other owners included John Bassett, a Canadian movie producer, and Stephen Arky, an attorney from Miami. Reynolds was a general partner of the team from 1982 to 1985, the entire existence of the USFL. The team held a winning record in every year. In 1983 they went 11–7–0 in the Central Division but did not make the playoffs. In 1984 they went 14–4–0 in the Southern Division and lost in the conference semifinals to the Birmingham Stallions 36–17. In 1985 they went 10–8–0 in the Eastern Conference but lost in the quarterfinals to the Oakland Invaders 30–27.

Reynolds also co-owned a NASCAR Winston Cup team with Hal Needham, which ran the #33 Skoal Bandits car, with driver Harry Gant.

Honorary recognitions

Reynolds has received a number of honorary recognitions over the years, mostly keys to various cities, or deputy badges from being deputized.

Awards and achievements

  • 1978 Star (for motion pictures) on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6838 Hollywood Blvd.[18]
  • National Association of Theater Owners No. 1 box-office star for five straight years (1978–82)
  • 1987 Eastman Kodak Second Century Award
  • 1991 American Cancer Society's Lifetime Achievement Award
  • 2000 Children at Heart Award[19]
  • 2003 Atlanta IMAGE Film and Video Award[20]
  • 2007 Taurus Lifetime Achievement Award
  • 2007 Best Buddies Canada Lifetime Achievement Award[21]
  • Emmy Awards
  1. 1991 Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (for Evening Shade)
  1. 1998 Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (for Boogie Nights)
  2. 1992 Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series - Comedy/Musical (for Evening Shade)
  1. 1991 Favorite Male Performer in a New TV Series
  2. 1984 Favorite Motion Picture Actor (tied with Clint Eastwood)
  3. 1983 Favorite Motion Picture Actor
  4. 1983 Favorite All-Around Male Entertainer
  5. 1982 Favorite Motion Picture Actor
  6. 1982 Favorite All-Around Male Entertainer
  7. 1980 Favorite Motion Picture Actor
  8. 1979 Favorite Motion Picture