The Man from Left Field
“I should have been born a hundred years earlier when not having a style was a style.”
—Burt Reynolds in Gator (1976)
The passing of Burt Reynolds this September at age 82 from cardiac arrest drew a lot of attention, but once again relegated to a footnote what I consider his most remarkable achievement: his small but fascinating body of work as a director, which is still overshadowed by his star image. It’s somewhat understandable, of course. After all, gone was a legend: one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the ’70s and ’80s and a major sex symbol to boot, his famous nude spread for Cosmopolitan in 1972 confirming his world-conquering celebrity and helping launch him to the top of the box office. For five years (1978-1982), Reynolds topped Quigley’s “Top Ten Money-Making Stars Poll,” a feat equalled only by Bing Crosby (1944-48). (Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks secured five top honours as well, but not consecutively; nor was Tom Cruise, who surpassed them all with seven number-one spots total, able to make such a run.)
Reynolds’ rocky road to success became part of his legend. Born Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. in Lansing, Michigan (which he admitted only in 2015, because “I grew up a Southern boy who didn’t want to be a Yankee”), he moved to Florida with his family at age ten, when his father became chief of police in Riviera Beach. A promising football career at Florida State University was derailed by a knee injury, and young Burt ended up acting instead. Helpful colleague Joanne Woodward described him as a youngster markedly different from the tough-yet-smooth, funny-macho Burt persona of his heyday: “I knew him as this cute, shy, attractive boy. He had the kind of lovely personality that made you want to do something for him.”
Working his way up from theatre through television (notably a prolonged stint on beginning in 1962, when he filled in for Dennis Weaver), Reynolds graduated to action lead in films like Sergio Corbucci’s Italo-Western (1966) and Sam Fuller’s (1968) before hitting the jackpot with John Boorman’s classic (1972), which he regularly singled out as “probably my best work” in his characteristically self-deprecating career self-assessments (“I’ve done more than 100 movies. I’m proud of maybe five of them”). While Reynolds claimed stunt—which he did for “a kick” and because of his “strange sense of humour”—cost him an Academy Award nomination for , his breakthrough was considerably bolstered by his sex appeal—which he promptly lampooned in his supporting stint as a spermatozoon in Woody Allen’s (1972)—and charisma, which he got to show off doing his frequent talk-show rounds.
