- #Burt reynolds smokey and the bandit co star dies movie#
- #Burt reynolds smokey and the bandit co star dies professional#
- #Burt reynolds smokey and the bandit co star dies series#
“He is the only movie star who didn’t come from a hit play or a big movie,” former girlfriend Sally Field, who starred with Reynolds in “Smokey and the Bandit” and three other movies, told Variety in 1997.
#Burt reynolds smokey and the bandit co star dies series#
He went on to play the recurring role of half-Indian blacksmith Quint Asper on “Gunsmoke” from 1962 to 1965 before starring in two short-lived series of his own – the police dramas “Hawk” (1966) and “Dan August” (1970-71).īy the mid ’60s, Reynolds also had begun landing starring roles in films such as “Navajo Joe,” “100 Rifles,” “Sam Whiskey,” “Shark!” “Impasse” and “Skullduggery” - generally the kind of movies that, he’d joke, “they show in prisons and airplanes because nobody can leave.” TV and film: He had his first brush with fame co-starring with Darren McGavin on “Riverboat,” the 1959-61 TV adventure series. Reynolds was a struggling young New York actor before becoming a contract player at Universal in 1958.
#Burt reynolds smokey and the bandit co star dies professional#
But his dreams of playing professional football ended after he tore the cartilage in one of his knees during a game in 1955 and re-injured his knee in a near-fatal car accident later that year.Īfter recovering, Reynolds enrolled at what is now Palm Beach Community College where, at a professor’s urging, he auditioned for a production of “Outward Bound” and wound up winning the 1956 Florida State Drama Award. Known as a speedy fullback at Palm Beach High School, he earned a scholarship to Florida State University. What saved him from himself, he said, was becoming a star athlete.
“I was completely rebellious, being the chief’s son,” Reynolds recalled in a 1992 interview with the Saturday Evening Post. A decade later, the family moved to Riviera Beach, Florida, where Burt Sr., a tough and strict World War II veteran, worked first as a general contractor and eventually became chief of police. “Now,” he joked, “I look like I make love in the bedroom and not on the living room floor.”Įarly life: Burton Leon Reynolds Jr., who was one-quarter Cherokee on his father’s side, was born Feb. Losing his trademark facial hair, he acknowledged in a 1978 interview with The Washington Post, made him “look less sexy.” Reynolds was such a big star in the ’70s that even shaving off his mustache gained attention. That most notably applied to his role in “Smokey and the Bandit,” the 1977 action comedy in which Reynolds, as the Coors beer-bootlegging Bandit opposite Jackie Gleason’s pursuing red-neck sheriff, looks directly into the camera at one point and smiles at the audience.
“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.” ‘Macho pixy’: 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.”
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.”Īnd 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.