Burt Reynolds - An appreciation thread

He used to beat the shit out of Judy Carne on a daily basis.

He handed a load pistol to Loni Anderson and told her, "Here, do the world a favor and blow your fuckin' brains out."

Didn't they play a husband-and-wife screenwriting duo in this? That's all I remember. Oh, and also Burt taking a suds up shower early in the film. I definitely enjoyed it.

What an asshole the man was.

Best Friends is one of my favorite movies. I think I may pull out my DVD and watch it again tonight. It's been years since I watched it last.

And yes, Burt enjoyed the pleasure of the male flesh as well as the broads. And no he did not like twinks. He liked em' grown and muscular. If you watch many of his later movies you'll see the same group of guys playing background roles in them. Those are Burt's long time fuck buddies. And I got this from a close friend of Burt.

Greatest thing he did was pose nude for Cosmo. It proved to be a great cosmic chess move in the war of the sexes. Up until then men were such assholes when it came to women’s lib.

Yeah, R4. Like Dom Leluise and Charles Nelson Reilly.

I love his shower scene from Silent Movie

Burt Reynold's character in Citizen Ruth has a twink attendant.

He seemed to have gotten very bitter and grouchy in the last 10-15 years of his life. I don't know why, of course, but until then he always had a great sense of humor about himself and was extremely generous and adoring of his many friends. As they apparently were of him.

He was a notoriously difficult person. If you ever want to see someone being an asshole bully in front of an audience, this Tonight Show clip is your ticket.

That said, he could also be quite loyal to friends, including ultra gay Charles Nelson Reilly.

His final film, The Last Movie Star, has him essentially playing himself, a broken-down, half-forgotten, old crank of an actor who nevertheless still has a charisma that most other actors would kill for. It’s a middling film that got very little attention, but boasts a terrific performance from Reynolds.

Maybe not a very good human being, but he really was a great movie star.

I know a couple of gay cater waiters who did a lot of events at Burt's house. I asked them if he was bi and they said no and if he were, trust me, you wouldn't want him. #majorasshole

[quote] Yeah, [R4]. Like Dom Leluise and Charles Nelson Reilly.

Not all his friends were fuck buddies. Burt didn't fuck fatties or sissies.

In your dreams, R12.

DEFINED masculine beauty in that age

R13 = Sonja Harper

I always thought Burt and Hal Needham had some kind of a thing going on. Hal was handsome. Brad Pitt played him in Once Upon a Time in America, and Leo was Burt.

How did it work with his toupee and sex, do you think?

Some people still speculate that he murdered David Whiting.

it’s so strange that Burt Reynolds, one of the biggest stars on earth, has pretty much been forgotten. He didn’t really leave any legacy—like a popular movie.

DL fave Lorna Luft ("famed Method actress") claims Burt was completely obsessed with her, Liza set them up in Mexico, and that Burt had a panic attack when she finally agreed to go out with him. She was not impressed esp when he went back to Dinah Shore.

He has some good movies, (Deliverance should be much better remembered), Starting Over, Boogie Nights, the first Smokey and the Bandit, Best Friends. But he wasted so much of his output on crap, largely out of loyalty to his friends.

He was the number one box office star of the year longer than anyone.

In private, he preferred to be called Turd Ferguson.

He posed full-frontal for Francesco Scavullo during the Cosmo shoot. His agent told him those images could not be used. He was willing, though, to be seen fully naked in the magazine.

One of the original Cosmo photos leaked years ago.

Best Friends was one of those movies that was on cable all the time in the early 80s. I think he was bitter that boogie nights didn’t lead to more better work and in later years he disparaged it. Also he was someone who burned bridges and blew second and third chances.

Not so strange, R19. With one exception, all of his movies were shit.

R24, you can’t tell that’s a fake? He has almost three legs.

R19, when he died, he was a has-been, a punchline. He wasn’t even c-list. He was a nobody.

The was a rumor he and Lee Majors had a thing.

He directed Farrah Fawcett in Butterflies are Free at his dinner theater.

He had bad plastic surgery, which was OK for Boogie Nights, but not OK for anything else.

[quote]Burt Reynold's character

Oh, dear.

Only at the Datalounge, R29.

I only ever liked him when, in 2012, he appeared as himself on an episode of Archer.

I remember in a college journalism class having to write a TV version of an AP story about his last wife wanting a divorce on the grounds of among other things that he intentionally used to step on her toes.

R4- I know Dom DeLuise was a close homosexual friend of his.

R12- I am a FATTIE and a SISSIE.

Would you FUCK me?

Don Deluise and Charles Nelson Reilly were gay?!

R12 = a lot to prove

He made Our Sally (Field) miss the Emmys when she won for Sybil because he needed company on a film shoot. In her bio she can't believe she let herself be talked into missing them. They were only in Santa Barbara. She could have driven down easily for them but she thinks he was jealous and sabotaging her becoming a serious actress.

Sally also refused to challenge the rumors Burt was gay and had AIDS. "There were always those kinds of people around him."

Sally had self-esteem issues.

Ida Blownim

CHARLES NELSON REILLY!!!!…..CHARLES NELSON REILLY!!!???!!!

I loved him in Sharky's Machine, along with Brian Keith.

That extreme plastic surgery at his advanced age was insane, I can't imagine what he was thinking or that he didn't have knowledgeable and caring friends to talk him out of it. His face looked like it was made of cheap clay. Sad.

I thought the BOOGIE NIGHTS issue was that Burt was disenchanted on the shoot, very difficult and dubious about the director, and only (sort of) came around when the movie and he got raves and Oscar nominations. But by then he was thought to be a grouchy sore loser and that's why the role didn't lead to other quality parts. And then, there was the tragic plastic surgery.....

Say what you will about Burt being a lightweight, but the reality is that Burt changed the face of cinema forever with his use of blooper outtakes during the final credit scroll at the end of the Canonball Run films...

How did the bloopers change the face of cinema forever?

Reynolds was also probably the last person to see Inger Stevens alive as she overdosed after he left her home following an argument.

He probably would have won the Oscar for Boogie Nights but he was so disdainful of the film in what little promotional work he did that he turned people off.

He was the America’s sexiest actor until Tom Selleck came along

[italic]Smokey and the Bandit[/italic] was so huge. I bet he thought he had his legacy sealed with that one, but in the end it was just Burt Reynolds being cool.

He should have done Terms of Endearment. He was offered the Jack Nicholson part but wasn't ready to give up the sex symbol image yet.

That’s really important (eye roll).

It was like he was addicted to plastic surgery. In addition to everything else, he kept having his nose thinned. He made Sally Field get a boob job too.

^ eye roll is for R49

He owned the mid 70's to mid 80's and now you don't see him much when they do retrospectives of that time. My mom loved him, had his Cosmo poster and my Mom was actually quite prudish so that was a big thing.

On SNL, there was someone who imitated him, chewing gum and winking all the time.

Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and Al Pacino might disagree with you, R58.

I can’t get beyond “I would have came”.

R59 That was the late, great Norm MacDonald.

Like so many celebrities before and after him, Burt's biggest problem was his lack of maturity. He was a complete cretin when it came to managing his money. And then he married and even more crazed money hog Loni Anderson) who came close to destroying him financially.

Ask anyone under 40 and they probably don't even know who he was. That's how quickly he faded.

For a #1 box office star, he was incredibly engaging and accessible to his public, often appearing on talk shows, making fun of himself. Audiences felt like they really knew him (whether that was the real him or not). Can you imagine Redford, Pacino or Eastwood having a highly publicized affair with Dinah Shore and guesting on her afternoon show?

What was his ass like? Would love to have tongued it as he plowed a guy.

I was not alive when the Cosmo centerfold came out but for some reason it was being passed around by my aunts in the kitchen at a holiday gathering in the early 80s. A curious kid, I wanted to see what all the giggling was about and they wouldn’t let me see. My favorite aunt, Aunt Martha, must have known that I would turn out to be gay because she very casually but purposefully set the magazine down and left me alone in the kitchen wit it for a minute or two so I could see it. I remember really liking it but not understanding why.

That man didn't know a thing about appreciation!

I believed the press about him being a good person. What a slap in the eye it was for me to find out that he was a jerk. He and Loni deserved each other. I cannot stand her.

What was so bad about Loni?

R69, if you ever saw Reynolds on a talk show, you’d know he was a JERK.

Even the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre has shuttered and lies abandoned.

He also dated Tammy Wynette.

^ anything for publicity

R70 Loni is a rotten actress. As well as being greedy af.

But her acting, egads. She makes Jaclyn Smith look like Streep.

[quote] What was his ass like?

R66 Excessively hairy and insufficiently wiped.

Pauline Karl wrote that the Smokey and the Bandit blooper reels upended everything she’d ever thought about the movies, introducing an element of cinema verite into the car chase blockbuster genre, “with Reynolds grinning, knowing visage challenging the audience to align itself not with the film, but with filmmaking itself, inviting the spectator to peek behind the curtain of Hollywood magic, transforming the theater of moviegoers into fellow magicians.”

Jonathan Rosenbaum made a similar pronouncement, explaining that the Bandit blooper reels instantly altered the entire experience of viewing film, as “Burt Reynolds defied the preciously held rigid line between creation and product, not just breaking the fourth wall, but dismantling it from within” by not merely exposing but celebrating the process of artistry over the art itself.

Your going to need several links to support that shit, R77.

Love you, R77

Here's a photo of Burt when he visited what was at the time one of the most famous drag bars in the US, The Sweet Gum Head, in Atlanta. Here he's cozied up to the inimitable Rachel Wells aka Mr. John Greenwell. Burt looks right happy there.

r59 that was Norm McDonald.

I thought he only liked muscle men and manly men;, R80.

^^Did you see me say he fucked that drag queen?

Burt Reynolds is one of those good looking jocks that likes to be desired. Other examples are Robbie Williams, Peter Beard, JFK Jr., and half of all rugby players ever.

He’d have a good time anywhere people think they are the hottest piece of ass to ever walk in the place and there’s no place like a drag show for that.

R63- Jonny Depp is another Cretin in general and in particular about managing his money. Nicholas Cage was/is a HAM of an actor and another buffoon with his money. These cretins live beyond their means. ORCA I mean Oprah is no more intelligent than them but she has someone brilliant investing/handling her money because Miss Ozmempic 2023 in now worth $4 billion!

I disliked his Smokey and The Bandit movies. Liked him in Boogie Nights.

I like his dic-pic.

He was on a tv show when I was a kid playing a Native American. I don't remember the show but he was very hot back then.

I’ve only seen him in his most famous tv appearance-cameo as Sophia’s date on The Golden Girls.

I think Burt was at least 25% ( maybe 50%?) Native American.

Dinah Shore was the love of his life, supposedly, but the age difference or something got in the way. Or maybe it was lavender relationship kind of thing. Who knows? Sounds like he couldn't he himself in any case and was an asshole because of it.

One of his Tonight Show appearances back in the day

"Smokey And The Bandit" opened at Radio City Music Ha;ll in NY and promptly flopped. Universal thought they had a dog but it took off in the south and word of mouth kicked in and it did well when it opened wide in the NY area after the RCMH exclusive run..

Burt played the title role in the movie "Navajo Joe" back in the 60s. He also played the half Comanche/half white blacksmith character Quint Asper in Gunsmoke for a few seasons.

He was passable in NA roles due to his swarthy looks. Some claimed he was part Cherokee, but that was not true.

In real life he was a BOSSY BOTTOM.

[quote]Dinah Shore was the love of his life

R91, Reynolds wrote that Sally Field was the love of his life.

Burt Reynolds always seemed to be writing his story as he lived it like someday it would be Very Important. Like someday his photo would be in books next to John Wayne and Cary Grant. Epic fail, Burt. You were not a legend, you were that box of popcorn.

[quote]You were not a legend, you were that box of popcorn.

Mary!

[quote] You were not a legend, you were that bottle of poppers.

There, fixed that for ya.

I didn't read her book, but I suspect Sally Field doesn't cherish warm, fuzzy memories from her time with Burt. In interviews when asked about him, she answered politely but the look in her eyes suggested there was a lot she wasn't sharing.

[quote] I think Burt was at least 25% ( maybe 50%?) Native American.

No way. Link?

Maybe 2%. He liked to lie a lot.

He had a nice dick.

he was my first older man crush, before that it was teeny bopper idols

Someone needs to make a movie about matchmaker Liza setting up Burt and Lorna for a romantic Mexican getaway, only to see the flames of desire turn to ashes.

He was so beautiful in the 1970s, and then he hit a wall hard in the early 80s.

R84 “Burt Reynolds is one of those good looking jocks that likes to be desired. Other examples are Robbie Williams. That fag!

Why’d he allegedly beat up Judy Carne? I heard he blacked her eyes more than once…

r107 she would not allow him to get fucked by his boyfriend in front of her.

lol r108, he was a bottom? I guess Dom was his…dom?

R107, she liked to sleep with other women. Most straight guys would love that, redneck Burt couldn’t handle it.

I think Dinah Shore was a dyke and their romance was a lot of bullshit. But the publicity was a boost for both of them.

A turning point was when his comedy film STARTING OVER came out. It was a funny movie, got great reviews and did good business at the box office. Then the Oscar nominations came out for that year and both his co-stars Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen were nominated. He, of course, was not. And he became very vocal on talk shows about how angry and disappointed he was that he was passed over. I think it was the beginning of his feeling very bitter about the business and the way he was perceived by his peers.

I thought he was good in “Starting Over,” but there was too much competition for him to be nominated that year.

Closeted Hollywood star. Kind of a jerk- at least on talk shows. Good in Deliverance and all the rest is dreck.

R113 - He was a FAG

My mother still doesn't pay attention to celebrities or pop culture. But she had a crush on old Burt back in the day. He was a real sex symbol back in the 70's.

He was sort of like Betty Grable. No respect from the critics and the Oscars but wildly popular with the general public. There have always been successful Hollywood stars like that.

[quote]He was so beautiful in the 1970s, and then he hit a wall hard in the early 80s.

He was a high school footballer and they get banged up, then he became an actor and did almost all his stunts and got continuously banged up. Then he did "City Heat" with Eastwood and got really hurt and his body finally gave out.

If Reynolds had a fucking bran, he wouldn’t have done all that stunt shit. Men like that are constantly trying to prove their “manhood.”

I imagine Burt did the stunt work because he knew he couldn't act so it was his one way of bringing some kind of (misguided) authenticity to a characterization.

So handsome in his prime, like a latter-day Clark Gable. But he had that laugh.

Didn't he claim he had TMJ when he started to look rough

Loved the movie directed by Clark Duke. Burt re-imagines himself in some of his greatest roles both in movies and in real life. I didn't know he was such a great athlete in his youth.

[quote]Didn't he claim he had TMJ when he started to look rough

Yes, he got hit in the head with a metal chair during "City Heat" and it threw his jaw out of line.

^ and his brain

[quote] If Reynolds had a fucking bran

You think that fiber would have helped him? 🤨🥴

At least he wouldn't have been such a messy bottom.

R98 I'm going to frame that quote!

The Last Movie Star -- Great movie and you can tell he had a good time filming it. Unfortunately, he died before it was released. Clark Duke captured his career with Burt playing along. Great film!

[quote] Like Dom Leluise and Charles Nelson Reilly.

Those two never played background roles in Burt's films. They were co-stars. Burt's fuck buddies were hot looking guys who were basically eye candy and whose names no one ever heard of.

^ Repeats the same thing over and over. Anyone convinced?

^Only to get a rise out of you. You're so easy.

R121 That is true. Because of that accident and throwing his jaw out, he did get TMJ. I, myself, had it for a period of time in my early 20s. It's awful. Lots of pain, and it's difficult to eat.

Burt lost a lot of weight. It was during the heyday of Aids, there had been rumors about Burt's sexuality, and many thought he had it. The TMJ story came out, and people were like "yeah, right!". But it really was true! And Burt lost out on a lot of work because of it.

Had he actually had HIV, we would have known about it by now.

Burt told Merv Griffin on TV that it was some flamboyant hairdressers who started the rumor.

I'm surprised they didn't say that he was the maid of honor at the Nabors-Hudson wedding.

You mean he didn't fuck Robbie Benson? There goes that fantasy!

R131, thank you for admitting that the manly man fuck buddies horseshit is a figment of your imagination.

He seemed okay during his extreme popularity faze. Most of his movies sucked, though. Boogie Nights was the exception, he was quite good in that.

R137 Don't forget Deliverance.

R138 How the hell did it take so long for that movie to be mentioned here?

Deliverance proved he was, at the very least, a decent actor. Watching it now, it's a mystery why he wasn't in the Oscar mix.

He was also incredibly hot!

R139 Burt said that he not only spoiled his chances of an Oscar nomination by doing the Playgirl centerfold that same year - with all the hoopla that surrounded it - but also felt that he did his Deliverance castmates a disservice.

According to Wiki, Burt made 145 feature films. How many were worth talking about? I thought Burt was a natural actor, but despite his protestations to be taken seriously, preferred to play the star.

Centerfold or no centerfold, Reynolds was NOT going to get any Oscar nomination for Deliverance. That guy was so full of self deluded shit most of the time. I actually like Deliverance and thought he was good, not great.

R142 So being full of self-deluded shit is reason enough not to be nominated for an Oscar? Eureka! You've solved the eternal question!

If Burt had been nominated for Deliverance, wouldn't it have been for Supporting Actor? Perhaps that's why, as a leading man, he didn't mind ruining his chances with the centerfold. Was anyone from the film nominated?

Honestly, when I think of Burt in the film it's really about a lot of posing in a sleeveless wet suit, not about acting.

I wish this guy would have decked him. He was a prick to slap this interviewer.

R143, Burt was a bullshitter. Burt was a mediocre actor. Burt was never going to get an Oscar. Now go back to bed.

The original The Longest Yard was a fuckin' hot movie. It might have been the first film I saw that made me think I had....uh....other sexual interests.

(Buster and Billie confirmed it!)

R142, it has been off-reported for decades that Reynolds was in the running for his big screen breakthrough for Best Supporting Actor in Deliverance but scuppered his chances by doing the Cosmo centrefold.

He did some kind of nude photoshoot for The Longest Yard too, didn’t he? I remember seeing photos of him in a football jersey pulled to reveal his sexy, bare ass.

Here’s one.

Yes, R148, Burt said all of that.

The actor who played his son on Evening Shade left because Burt was sexually harassing him.

[quote]r63 He was a complete cretin when it came to managing his money.

Sally Field wrote in her memoir that an uncomfortable aspect of their relationship was he split his rent and every conceivable bill with her 50/50. He was a bigger star than she was at the time.

She never complained about it, but… how tacky.

She sort of said she had to take care of him too, like make his dinner, sit there and watch tv with him. It sounded like a big distraction from her own life.

She didn’t seem to think he was actually capable of a loving relationship. Just wanted to possess her.

Burt took advantage of everything he had - great looks, physical perfection, sense of humor, sex appeal, and a kind disposition. Good for him!

Burt had a string of one-name-titled movies in the late 80s. Hooper, Stick, Heat, Malone.

Dinah Shore was a lesbian.

It's so cute watching DLers put static labels on people with dynamic, fluid approaches to sexuality, as if they need these people to be one thing for a sense of security masquerading as sefl-righteousness.

[quote]Burt had a string of one-name-titled movies in the late 80s. Hooper, Stick, Heat, Malone.

It started in the '70s: Shamus, Fuzz, Hustle, Gator.

BTW R155 Hooper was made in the '70s also, but Paternity is one you can add to your '80s list.

Do the hyphens in Rent-a-Cop qualify it as one word?

the object of Burt's affection.

R160 who is that?

The kid from Evening Shade. You'd recognize him as an adult. He's been in a ton of shit but is somehow still not a household name. Jay R. Ferguson.

Huh, I just get a stinky link icon at r160.

Adult Jay R. Ferguson was hot on MAD MEN.

Jay R. Ferguson...never heard of him.

[quote]Jay R. Ferguson...never heard of him

He's been playing Becky's husband on "The Conners" for years now.

Not to derail Mr. Burt Reynolds' thread but that's the word thing about Jay R. Ferguson. He's never stopped working but had never really been able to crack that B- list. He's talented and must be well liked because he's never had to worry about a next job.

Ferguson is also one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s closest friends, since they were kids I believe.

I remember, around the time of the Cosmo pic, and the height of his symbolism (early 70's) when he co-hosting on the Mike Douglas show, a woman in the audience asked Burt if she could have a kiss. He obliged by asking her to come to the stage, where he dipped her and gave her the hottest kiss ever. From that moment, all week, as they took questions from the audience, several women would ask him for a kiss and he did the same. Looking back on it now, they may have been plants, but it was something that would never happen nowadays.

He was gorgeous back then.

'sex symbolism'

R67 and her vivid fake imagination

supposedly he was Olivia Newton John's stalker. Not in a funny haha way.

R169, I think a sexy man might still get away with it today if they were likable. Keanu Reeves or Paul Rudd might be able to. What wouldn’t fly is the shit Richard Dawson used to pull on Family Feud. Can you imagine the furore that would happen if Steve Harvey slipped the tongue to every woman who walked across the stage.

[quote]Jay R. Ferguson...never heard of him'

He was on that gay sitcom with Ben Platt's husband.

Correction, r166: his character is with Darlene.

And he is indeed hot as fuck.

Jay R. Ferguson was also Stan on MAD MEN

R176- He was quite full of himself on that show for someone who was so DUMPY.

But remind us, what did Jay R. Ferguson have to do with Burt Reynolds?

Or what did he have to do TO Burt Reynolds??

He played Burt Reynold's son on EVENING SHADE

I vaguely remember the scandal or incident or whatever you want to call it. It was entertainment news for about two days. I guess Bert had a lot of friends. Jay R. either left the show because of the harassment from Burt or he didn't have to leave the show as when it came out the show was abruptly cancelled. It was still a moderate hit, enjoying its highest ratings, when it was pulled. Hope my not so coherent explanation helps. You know how it is these days.

After Will Smith’s Academy Awards tantrum, seems like ppl would be more inhibited about kissing actresses.

[quote] What wouldn’t fly is the shit Richard Dawson used to pull on Family Feud.

SNL spoofed it well, with The Kennedys as one of the families. Of course Jackie was having none of it. Dark glasses and all, she silently shoved him backwards by the shoulders. Just no.

Along with Barry Manilow and Kenny Rogers, a plastic surgery cautionary tale

He was just perfect in The Longest Yard and Boogie Nights

That list has room for expansion, r183.

As long as they are hiring Americans...

THIS is a before of Wayne Newton. Both pictures above are after plastic surgery.

Why didn’t he do more musicals?

I'd like to have seen him in "Oh! Calcutta", R188.