Year 16, Day 183 - 7/2/24 - Movie #4,774
BEFORE: That last film was supposedly about the films and culture of the 1970's, but what do you think of when you think of 1970's America? Well, there was nobody bigger in movies than Burt Reynolds, so it's time for another tribute documentary, cobbled together from archive footage. Peter Bogdanovich carries over from "We Blew It".
THE PLOT: The ups and downs of Burt Reynolds' career and private life.
AFTER: Oddly, this one ties back to the two films last week, the tributes to Chris Farley and John Belushi. All three men played football in high school or college (common enough) and then found their way into theater in college or shortly thereafter, all three then became best known for comedy, but had trouble transitioning to more dramatic roles. Burt was probably the biggest star of the three because he also made action films, and his movies dominated the box office for five solid years in the 1970's. All three men had issues with drugs, with Burt it wasn't so much recreational but started out as a way to deal with the pain from injuries due to movie stunts. And let's assume that all three men enjoyed being famous, and all that came along with it, like the attention from women.
Burt Reynolds had a number of high-profile long-term (2 years or more) relationships with famous women, the starter marriage was to Judy Carne from "Laugh-In" (she's not mentioned in this doc) and then spent several years with Dinah Shore, who was, well, older. But then had a lthing with Sally Field, after they co-starred in several movies - hey, that was Gene Wilder's trick, right? I can only imagine why things didn't work out, probably had something to do with the "line of women" outside his door, as she joked about during a celebrity roast. For years he regarded her as the love of his life, but also the "one that got away", and it's probably safe to assume that was his own fault. But then tabloids followed every minute of his relationship and eventual marriage to Loni Anderson. If you're wondering why the tabloid magazines tend to pick a famous couple and predict their break-up every other week, hoping to be right, that process might have started with Burt & Loni.
Anyway, back to football for a moment - Burt got a football scholarship to Florida State and had a great freshman year, but then injured his knee early in his sophomore year, and also hurt the other knee in a car accident. So he took time off from Florida State and enrolled at Palm Beach Junior College, where his teacher in an English class urged him to try out for a play he was producing, based on his ability to recite Shakespeare in class. When he returned to Florida State, he won some kind of drama award that included a scholarship to a summer stock theater, the Hyde Park Playhouse, and this led him to Broadway and acting classes. But he couldn't get cast in movies, and after waiting tables, washing dishes and driving a truck, he got offered acting roles and stunt work on TV shows in the 1950s.
What helped him out was the effect he had on the secretaries at casting agents, but what held him back was the fact that he looked too much like Marlon Brando. But much like Mary Tyler Moore, he played heavies on every crime show he could book. Finally he landed a regular role on "Gunsmoke" in 1962 and stayed on the show until 1965. The next year he had his own show, "Hawk" and appeared in a Spaghetti Western titled "Navajo Joe". A few minor film roles then, before the next western, "Sam Whiskey", followed quickly by "100 Rifles". (Hey, I've seen those!)
While waiting for the next big opportunity, he hit the TV talk-show circuit and became a favorite guest on Merv Griffin's show, because he made jokes about how poorly his career was going, when most guests would come on and say only glowing things about themselves. Then Carson started inviting him on, and he even guest-hosted for Johnny a couple times. Some network even offered him his own talk-show, but he turned it down because he still wanted to be a movie star. That finally happened with "Deliverance" in 1972, and it only took him 15 years to become an overnight success.
Around the same time, there was scandal when he posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine, on a dare from editor Helen Gurley Brown. It's debatable now whether Burt did this as a joke, as a social commentary, or just a way to increase his profile, perhaps all three at once. For years Burt claimed that posing nude hurt his career, maybe even cost him an Oscar, but I bet he got even more attention from women than before, and he was doing all right before.
This doc then kind of skips over "The Longest Yard", "White Lightning" and "Gator", but it's only so it can spend more time on "Smokey and the Bandit". There's also no mention of "Semi-Tough", '"Starting Over", or "The End", in fact Dom DeLuise is really nowhere to be seen for some reason. They also needed time, no doubt, to promote Burt's feature at the time, "The Last Movie Star", which would turn out to be his last starring role. Then there's time to show clips from "Stroker Ace", because they did interview Loni Anderson, but once again, something had to be cut, so no mention of "The Man Who Loved Women", "Cannonball Run" or "Stick" - all of the omissions really ended up making this doc tribute feel very incomplete.
At some point his relationship with Loni became sort of on-again, off-again, but still they tied the knot and adopted a son, Quinton. Loni goes into great detail, however, about how Burt didn't really know how to express love as an emotion, probably because his parents couldn't do that with him. Or because he was taking so many painkillers at this point. Either way, the film work sort of dried up, so he transitioned to TV with "Evening Shade" and when that ended, had sort of a career revival with "Boogie Nights".
Reynolds was also a part owner of a USFL team, the Tampa Bay Bandits, sponsored an auto-racing team, owned and operated a horse ranch, had a dinner theatre in Jupiter, Florida, and a restaurant in Atlanta at the Omni Hotel, and another restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. However, by all accounts he wasn't a very good businessman, at one point he made up to $10 million a year, but lost $20 million just on those restaurants alone. Having $6 million in assets doesn't mean much when you also have $11 million in debt. So of course, he had to sell that ranch.
I don't know, there's a cautionary tale in there somewhere, maybe even a couple of them.
Also starring Loni Anderson (last heard in "All Dogs Go to Heaven"), Bobby Bowden, Bruce Dern (last seen in "Nostalgia"), Logan Fleming, Marilu Henner (last seen in "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond"), Nancy Lee Hess, Mo Mustaine, Joe Namath (last seen in "The Wedding Ringer"), Quinton Reynolds, Adam Rifkin, Ann Scurry, Jon Voight (last seen in "De Palma"), Ariel Winter (last seen in "One Missed Call"), Alfie Wise
with archive footage of Burt Reynolds (last seen in "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead"), Paul Thomas Anderson (last seen in "Sr."), Ned Beatty (last seen in "Shooter"), John Boorman, James L. Brooks (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Johnny Carson (ditto), Helen Gurley Brown, Carol Burnett (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Rock Hudson (ditto), James Lipton (ditto), Ronny Cox (last seen in "Being the Ricardos"), Ossie Davis (last seen in "What's My Name; Muhammad Ali"), Doris Day (last seen in "The Automat"), Kirk Douglas (last seen in "De Palma"), Charles Durning (ditto), Paul Williams (ditto), Clark Duke (last seen in "Sex Drive"), Clint Eastwood (last seen in "The Marksman"), Sally Field (last seen in "80 for Brady"), David Frost (last seen in "Sammy Davis: I've Gotta Be Me"), Merv Griffin (last seen in "Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind"), Gene Hackman (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder), John Hillerman (last seen in "Paper Moon"), Hal Holbrook (last seen in "Creepshow"), Michael Jeter (last seen in "Welcome to Collinwood"), Shirley MacLaine (last seen in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent"), Lee Majors (last seen in "Spielberg"), Pat McCormick (last seen in "Smokey and the Bandit II"), Jerry Reed (ditto), Darren McGavin (last seen in "The Man with the Golden Arm"), Ricardo Montalban (last seen in "Battle of the Sexes"), Jim Nabors (last seen in "Mr. Warmth - The Don Rickles Project"), Hal Needham, Jack Nicholson (last seen in "The Last Tycoon"), Brad Pitt (last seen in "Babylon"), Charles Nelson Reilly (last heard in "All Dogs Go to Heaven"), Burt Reynolds Sr., Fern Reynolds, Tom Selleck (last seen in "Coma"), Martin Sheen (last seen in "Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain"), Ann Wedgeworth (last seen in "Green Card"), Robin Williams (last seen in "Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You").
RATING: 4 out of 10 roles he allegedly turned down (including "M*A*S*H" and "Star Wars")
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