Burt Reynolds

You can only hold your stomach in for so many years.

Burt Reynolds

Burton Leon Reynolds Jr.
February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018

Burt Reynolds began acting on television in the late 1950s. 

He had regular role as Ben Frazer in Riverboat, he joined the cast of Gunsmoke as "halfbreed" blacksmith Quint Asper, and performed that role during the years just before the departure of Chester Goode and just after the appearance of Festus Haggen. He used his television work to secure leading roles for low-budget films and played the titular role in the spaghetti western Navajo Joe (1966), before playing the title character in police drama Dan August (1970–71). He later disparaged the series, telling Johnny Carson that Dan August had "two forms of expression: mean and meaner". 

Reynolds appeared on ABC's The American Sportsman hosted by outdoors journalist Grits Gresham, who took celebrities on hunting, fishing and shooting trips around the world. He had the lead in Impasse (1969) and Shark!, the latter with director Sam Fuller who disowned the rough cuts. Albert R. Broccoli asked Reynolds to play James Bond, but he turned the role down, saying "An American can't play James Bond. It just can't be done." Reynolds made his breakout role in Deliverance and gained notoriety when he posed naked in the April 1972 issue of Cosmopolitan. During the 1970s, Reynolds played leading roles in a series of action films and comedies, such as White Lightning (1973), The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (also 1973), Lucky Lady (1975) or Smokey and the Bandit (1977). He made his directorial debut in 1976 with Gator, the sequel to White Lightning. During the 1980s, his leading roles included The Cannonball Run (1981) and Malone (1987) and All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989). Also in 1989 Reynolds portrayed Buddy Lee Stryker, aka B.L., a Vietnam war vet and retired New Orleans police officer who has moved back home to the other side of the tracks in Palm Beach, Florida and is working as a private investigator. Stryker lives on a houseboat and drives an old Caddy, and occasionally scrapes up a client while trying to avoid being relocated for not paying his slip fees.

After starring in Paul Thomas Anderson's second film Boogie Nights (1997), Reynolds refused to star in Anderson's third film, Magnolia (1999). Despite this, Reynolds was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Boogie Nights. 
Reynolds starred in Evening Shade a sitcom that aired on CBS from September 21, 1990 to May 23, 1994. The series starred Reynolds as Wood Newton, an ex-professional football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who returns to rural Evening Shade, Arkansas, to coach a high-school football team with a long losing streak. Reynolds personally requested to use the Steelers as his character's former team, because he is a fan. 

He voiced Avery Carrington in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City released in 2002.He had support parts in Miss Lettie and Me (2003) and Without a Paddle (2004), and two high-profile films: the remake of The Longest Yard (2005) and The Dukes of Hazzard (2005). Reynolds turned in a critically-acclaimed performance in the drama The Last Movie Star (2017), one of his last films. In May 2018, he joined the cast for Quentin Tarantino's film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but died before shooting his scenes.



Good Night Mr. Reynolds

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Tony Figueroa