Rip Burt Reynolds

They finally caught up with The Bandit.

Son of a Female Doggo. Dude was an American icon.

I had heard that he wasn't a very nice man, off-camera, but he certainly was iconic. I enjoyed quite a bit of his work. Funny enough, I think the last thing I saw him in was Archer.

RIP.

I'll always remember him as Bandit, and as J.J. McClure unreasonably smacking around Dom DeLuise in the Cannonball Run movies.

I was of the age where growing up, Burt Reynolds personified the chintzy 70s, which also means I was of the age for Boogie Nights to be his iconic role, so that worked out okay for him. RIP

Patton Oswalt wrote:

Burt Reynolds & Clint Eastwood were fired from GUNSMOKE & RAWHIDE at the same time. Burt was told he couldn't act and Clint his neck was too skinny. In the parking lot, Burt said to Clint, "I dunno what you're gonna do, but I'm gonna take acting lessons." #RIPBurtReynolds

UpToIsomorphism wrote:
Patton Oswalt wrote:

Burt Reynolds & Clint Eastwood were fired from GUNSMOKE & RAWHIDE at the same time. Burt was told he couldn't act and Clint his neck was too skinny. In the parking lot, Burt said to Clint, "I dunno what you're gonna do, but I'm gonna take acting lessons." #RIPBurtReynolds

Deadlifts, Burt. Duh.

I don't know anything about his offscreen life or real self, but his onscreen personae were usually a lot of fun. I was a little too young for him to be a major influence on me, but I don't think you could be in the 70s at all and not know who he was. Not too many people can say that.

82's a little on the young side, maybe, but not unreasonably so.

I saw in someone's comment that he had a real regret that he'd screwed up his relationship with Sally Field... apparently he was interviewed in 2015, and that was one of the things he talked about. That definitely increased my respect for him, that he'd still be talking about that, thirty years later.

We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.
I'm east bound, just watch ol' "Bandit" run.
RIP Bandit

I really idolized Burt back in the day, Smokey and the Bandit was my favorite movie and I had a replica '77 Pontiac Firebird. Then there was The Longest Yard, Hooper (a tribute to Hollywood Stuntmen), and Cannonball Run. All still worth watching, imho.

Some bad movies in there but he was always entertaining somehow.

Read this earlier and it's heartbreaking:

Interviewing Burt Reynolds was a revelation which still shocks me today

No sensible person expects a 79-year-old man to resemble the virile god he was 40 years before. But the gap between the fantasy and the reality that presented itself when I met him on that December night was so devastating I couldn’t speak for a few seconds. Reynolds always was a professional, so he gave it his charming best, doing some obligatory flirting with me, reeling out the anecdotes when the interview started, but the physical evidence was too stark to ignore. Racked by pain from lifelong injuries, he could neither stand up straight nor walk more than five steps without reaching for his pot of pills. These, in turn, made him a little addled, and he stumbled several times as I walked him towards his seat.
Within 10 minutes, Reynolds was crying. “I’m sorry, I wanted this to be fun,” he said helplessly to the audience, trying to be an entertainer to the end.

If anyone has not had the chance you should check out The Last Movie Star. It is especially poignant given his passing. I was going to watch one of his classics, but chose this instead, I am glad I did.