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The Untold Truth Of Burt Reynolds

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The mustache, the swagger, the box-office reign — and the wreckage he left behind him on more than one set.

Burt Reynolds died September 6, 2018, in Jupiter, Florida, at age 82, closing out a career that took him from a football scholarship at Florida State to the top of Hollywood’s box-office charts in the 1970s and ’80s. In between, he burned through iconic roles he turned down, a marriage that ended in bankruptcy, and reputations he damaged on more than one film set. The story behind the mustache and the grin was rougher than the persona ever let on.

• Reynolds regretted posing nude on a bearskin rug for a 1972 Cosmopolitan centerfold, believing it undercut his credibility as a dramatic actor.
• He passed on Terms of Endearment — the role that won Jack Nicholson an Oscar — and instead made 1983’s Stroker Ace, one of his biggest flops.
• His costly divorce from Loni Anderson helped push him into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1996 after he racked up more than $10 million in debt.

From Football Scholarship to Broadway

Reynolds arrived at Florida State on an athletic scholarship with a shot at a professional football career. Knee injuries and a car accident ended that plan before it went anywhere, and he pivoted toward acting instead — first on Broadway, then in Hollywood, where the same physicality that made him a running back translated into the kind of screen presence that carried Deliverance in 1972.

The Choices He Couldn’t Take Back

Once Deliverance made him a star, Reynolds became the industry’s biggest draw for the better part of a decade, powered by hits like Smokey and the Bandit in 1977. But he was just as famous for the roles he didn’t take. He later called his decision to pose nude for that 1972 Cosmopolitan issue one of the worst calls of his career, arguing it made audiences see him as a beefcake instead of a dramatic actor. He compounded the damage by skipping Terms of Endearment for Stroker Ace, watching the role he passed on hand Jack Nicholson an Academy Award.

A Marriage That Cost Him Everything

Reynolds long described Sally Field as the great love of his life, but it was his marriage to Loni Anderson that defined his personal finances. Their divorce in the 1990s turned bitter and expensive, and by 1996 Reynolds had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with more than $10 million in debt on the books — a stunning fall for a man who’d spent years as the country’s top box-office star.

The Reputation for Friction on Set

Reynolds’ charm didn’t always survive contact with his co-stars. Kathleen Turner said in an August 2018 interview that he reduced her to tears on the very first day of shooting 1988’s Switching Channels, refusing to take a back seat to a leading woman on his own picture. That same instinct famously collided with director Paul Thomas Anderson on the set of Boogie Nights in 1997 — a clash that, ironically, produced the performance that earned Reynolds a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, the biggest comeback of his career. He kept working in smaller roles afterward, closing out his filmography with 2017’s The Last Movie Star. Readers of pieces like actors who treat their co-stars like trash will recognize the pattern — talent and tension arriving in the same package.

He wasn’t going to take “second place to a woman” — Kathleen Turner, on filming Switching Channels with Reynolds.

What’s striking is how often the friction paid off anyway. The Boogie Nights shoot was reportedly miserable for both men, yet it handed Reynolds his only Oscar nomination and reset his career after years of flops — proof that even his messiest working relationships, the kind chronicled in pieces like celebs who started out friends and ended up enemies, still produced some of his best work on screen.