Didn't Burt Reynolds attend one of those Actors' Studio things in his youth? John Forsythe, who was in there with him, once said Reynolds had considerable potential but "we don't know what happened to him" (as Reynolds became a top box office star) because Burt's "serious actor" credentials had been tossed away long ago.
Burt's early, seething Brando-y quality was pretty short-lived. Replaced by the relatively-benign silly a**hole persona he slipped into and seemed to prefer. He used to beat Judy Carne (according to Judy Carne) and he always struck me (not physically, as I'd never meet him) as a selective abuser -- one who knew whom he could hit and whom he couldn't.... I'd be surprised if he slapped up Dinah Shore, but ya never knew. (Later in life, he acknowledged two of his most stalwart friends as Jon Voight and Angie Dickinson, probably because they patiently put up with his behavior and didn't abandon him for it).
Reynolds had a 40 years "feud" with Marlon Brando (as one would expect), and later admitted he'd steered Sally Field into doing POSEIDON ADVENTURE 2 in order to sabotage her career momentum after winning her first Oscar for NORMA RAE (Lord Olivier did the same thing to Vivien Leigh whenever she got an Oscar, encouraging her to promptly return to the stage to refine her craft). Reynolds eventually cited Sally Field as 'the love of his life', while Field (after Burt had died) snickered that that was "maybe in retrospect" and added "I don't think he was good for me."
LOL. Well, of course.
In the '80s when AIDS-rumors swirled around him (he began to look ill in a distinctly emaciated way) Sally Field was asked in an interview (in Playboy??) if he'd ever had any same-sex activities. Sally answered not to her knowledge. But that defense was too tepid for Reynolds, angered that his ex had not defended his heterosexuality more vehemently. (In fact, with that moustache, Reynolds had begun to look like an aging, late-'70s/early-'80s gay -- and one who might have caught something). Burt once said he would never get into a public "pissing contest with Sally because Sally would win". A questionable assertion, especially since she tended to avoid talking about him after their breakup.
Ugh, quite frankly.
I've recently started watching the I AM BURT REYNOLDS documentary that's currently You-Know-Where. For me, it offers some new information, considering I'm not terribly well-versed on Burt's personal and professional lives. One thing that did stick out to me as odd concerning the contents of the documentary was there has been no mentioning of Burt's being on GUNSMOKE. They make mention of other shows he was a part of, even short-lived ones, but GUNSMOKE is left by the wayside.
I think even GUNSMOKE fans forget he was on GUNSMOKE. He was in the B&W hour-long installments, which have been the least seen in syndication because they're B&W and an hour-long. But Reynolds says his GUNSMOKE years, 1962 to 1965, were the happiest of his career, for some reason. (They had a nice mood on the set, thanks to Jim Arness, who made sure of it).
But Burt's ultimate
just-hangin'-out-with-his-dudes screen identity was, yes, cheesy, defensive, and got awfully tiresome awfully quickly.
He also turned down his role in BOOGIE NIGHTS nine times before accepting it. (Getting an Academy Award nomination for it).
Lots of people are 'messes' but Burt Reynolds' messiness became part of his image which eventually upstaged everything else. At least, that's how it seemed to me.
Here, he looks a little like Brando, Heston and even Joe Don Baker.
