RIP Burt Reynolds

[hondo]

A well-known magazine writer was shopping her memoirs a few years ago, so we went to dinner. She was reminiscing about her days in the 1970s writing for Ms., where she profiled a number of male movie stars. "So, one day I was in the checkout line at the market," she said, "and saw Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds on the cover of People, and thought to myself, 'I slept with both of them!'"

There's an old joke about the groom and his best man at the wedding reception. Groom looks over the room and remarks: "the only women in here I haven't banged are my mother and sister." Best man replies, "Cool ... between the two of us we've ****ed them all."

 

[MTM]

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

Author Ace Atkins:

Dear Burt –

Damn it to hell. I waited too late to write this letter. We’ve corresponded a few times through your assistant Suzanne, and I’d been meaning to send along my latest novel—dedicated to you. A lot of people this summer have asked me about that dedication. You mean, that Burt Reynolds? I always answer: Is there another?

Do you know him? He reads my books! Burt is a big reader.

Have you met him? No. But I will someday.

I hope you knew how much your movies, your cool style, have meant to me both as a writer and a Southerner. After a few bourbons, I’m quick to point out that Smokey and the Bandit wasn’t just a car chase film. It was about us racing into the new South, knocking corrupt cops, racist bikers, and the slow mean old ways the hell out of the way. Each one of those films, those core action movies—Deliverance, White Lightning, Smokey and the Bandit, Sharky’s Machine—had so much to say about the emerging Deep South. The clash of good vs. evil, man vs. nature, the Bandit vs. Buford T. Justice.​

 

[Neutral Corner]

They re-ran an interview today that Terri Gross did on Fresh Air with Burt a while back. She asked him what it was like being the son of a county sheriff in Florida, and he replied that it was a lot like being a preacher's kid. "Some are very good and follow all the rules, and some rebel and go their own way and to hell with the consequences. I wasn't very good at following the rules."

He talked about getting into a fight with four other guys and all five of them got thrown in jail. The next day, one by one, his father would come back and say to one "Your father's here. You can leave now." When the fourth one was gone he looked at Burt and said "Your father never came to get you." Burt: "So he kept me in there for four days, and every single bad puking drunk they brought in, he put them in with me." Loved his father, thought that he was a great man, but he was a hardass.

The bit with the drunk made me laugh. You could tell by the way that Burt delivered the line that he'd told this story often.

 

[DanOregon]

Did Mythbusters ever do this?

And Atkins is right. Reynolds had a big part of the South no longer being seen as a Civil Rights battleground in the 70s, but a place with a unique culture totally separate from racial relations. Don't know how many people could have had so many movies produced in the South when there were no production facilities at all.
Pretty sure he filmed at least one movie in every state with an SEC football team. Imagine that.

 

[Vombatus]

Clark Gable, Burt Reynolds, _______

Could it be Gosling? Maybe but not sure he has enough natural charisma and machismo.

So if guys like them come along every so often, who would the current one be after Gable and Reynolds?

Sean Connery

 

[KJIM]

Watching Smokey and the Bandit again.

I knew that fellow Seminole Sonny Shroyer, who went on to play Enos in the "Dukes of Hazzard" was in it as a motorcycle cop, but had absolutely no idea that fellow "Dukes" colleagues Ben Jones and John Schneider had bit parts. Junior was played by a guy (Paul Henry) who played for the Steelers and the Rams. And maybe other people knew this, but the 8-year-old me had no idea that Little Enos was Paul Williams, who wrote "We've Only Just Begun" and "Just An Old-Fashioned Love Song."

My 1977 movie trifecta: Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Smokey and the Bandit. The adult me would have to throw in Slapshot, but as a Girl Raised In The South, I had no idea what hockey was at the time.

More Burt from Tallahassee: 'A TRUE SEMINOLE': Bobby Bowden and others remember Burt Reynolds, a Tallahassee legend

FSU president Jim Thrasher:

"But he never forgot his alma mater. He returned to campus when he could, bringing his trademark charm and wit, to visit old friends, catch a football game and mentor our film students. He remained an ardent supporter of Seminole Athletics and the entire university."

I love the spear on the helmets, but I hope he didn't have a hand in those God-awful ones they wore on Monday.

Reynolds was an advocate of different uniform combinations that he purchased for the Seminoles. He and Bowden also made design recommendations, including the spear on the helmets, according to Bowden.

I really hope the Marching Chiefs play "Eastbound and Down" at halftime today.

 

[Just the facts ma am]

Silent Movie. :)

 

[lakefront]

Watching Smokey and the Bandit again.

I knew that fellow Seminole Sonny Shroyer, who went on to play Enos in the "Dukes of Hazzard" was in it as a motorcycle cop, but had absolutely no idea that fellow "Dukes" colleagues Ben Jones and John Schneider had bit parts. Junior was played by a guy (Paul Henry) who played for the Steelers and the Rams. And maybe other people knew this, but the 8-year-old me had no idea that Little Enos was Paul Williams, who wrote "We've Only Just Begun" and "Just An Old-Fashioned Love Song."

My 1977 movie trifecta: Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Smokey and the Bandit. The adult me would have to throw in Slapshot, but as a Girl Raised In The South, I had no idea what hockey was at the time.

More Burt from Tallahassee: 'A TRUE SEMINOLE': Bobby Bowden and others remember Burt Reynolds, a Tallahassee legend

FSU president Jim Thrasher:


I love the spear on the helmets, but I hope he didn't have a hand in those God-awful ones they wore on Monday.


I really hope the Marching Chiefs play "Eastbound and Down" at halftime today.

Quick aside, if i knew how to start a thread, I would start one on song lyrjcs with Paul Williams being the kick off point.

 

[Scout]

Quick aside, if i knew how to start a thread, I would start one on song lyrjcs with Paul Williams being the kick off point.

He’s really good in season 2 of Goliath.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

Sean Connery

Daniel Craig

 

[Songbird]

Daniel Craig tries to be cool.

 

[Songbird]

Pierce Brosnan is pretty cool.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

Pierce Brosnan is pretty cool.

As a Bond geek, I will fight you for picking Brosnan over Craig. With weapons.

 

[DanOregon]

Shoot Paul Williams wrote lyrics for everything from the Love Boat theme to Rainbow Connection and for everyone from Streisand to the Carpenters to Daft Punk.

 

[Scout]

Chris Hemsworth

Bradly Cooper could be close.

 

[DanOregon]

I think Clooney qualifies. He doesn't do the "winking at the camera" stuff as clearly as Reynolds did - but like Burt, he's an actor who really seems to enjoy his work.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

I watched Deliverance and Smokey and the Bandit this weekend in honor of Burt.
On Smokey, if there's a goofier 'picture' (as Burt called them) out there that is more product of place and time, it is hard to find.
Somehow you have to love a conflict that centers around the transport of 400 cases of what was actually considered choice beer in 1977.

Burt always had a problem with the sodomy scene in Deliverance, thought it went too far.
People involved with the movie have said that no one in the community in which it was filmed wished for that to be part of the story.
I remember reading Ned Beatty in the NYT years ago saying that he felt he could identify with rape victimhood, some of the shame involved and the desire for it to be quieted.
There are lots of good homemade videos of old Herbert "Cowboy" Coward on YouTube, the toothless mountain man in the film.
Still alive and well (with dentures), and has a pet squirrel that will sit in his lap.

 

[swingline]

Still alive and well (with dentures), and has a pet squirrel that will sit in his lap.

This gave me my biggest smile today. Thanks!

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

Welcome. The videos are a lot of fun.