A New Burt Reynolds Tell-All Charts His Pre-‘Deliverance’ Fame, ‘Boogie Nights’ Disdain, and Roles That Got Away

Burt Reynolds died in 2018 while preparing to play George Spahn in Quentin Tarantino‘s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Most of the obituaries and remembrances at the time focused on three key roles: emasculated warrior Lewis Medlock in “Deliverance,” the immensely popular The Bandit in “Smokey and the Bandit” (the number two box office smash of 1977 behind “Star Wars”), and his Oscar-nominated work as porno director Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson‘s “Boogie Nights.”

All are undeniably iconic characters, but they only scratch the surface of a filmography that ranged from melancholy auteurist rom-com (Alan Pakula’s “Starting Over,” Blake Edwards’ “The Man Who Loved Women”) and sports flicks (“The Longest Yard,” “Semi-Tough”) to two Peter Bogdanovich pictures (“At Long Last Love” and “Nickelodeon”) as difficult to classify as they are criminally underrated. And then there are the movies Reynolds directed; he never achieved the widespread critical acceptance behind the camera of his friend and box office rival Clint Eastwood, but his tough and tender cop film “Sharky’s Machine” is a masterful contemporary noir that expertly balances graphic violence and intense romantic longing, and “The End” is singular black comedy that still feels subversive nearly 50 years later.

These and each of Reynolds’ other films of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s get the attention they deserve in Gary Schneeberger and James L. Neibaur’s new book “The Burt Reynolds Films,” a treasure trove of information for Reynolds fans and a handy guide to his work for the uninitiated. After a brief introduction that covers Reynolds’ early television work and small screen roles in films like “Angel Baby” and “Armored Command,” the authors devote a chapter to each of the actor’s films from his first starring role (in 1965’s “Operation C.I.A.”) to his final movie of the 1980s, Bill Forsyth’s delicate comedy “Breaking In.” Each chapter provides credits, a synopsis, and — most delightfully for Reynolds enthusiasts — production histories and overviews of the films’ critical and popular responses.

The format yields a highly entertaining and enlightening journey through Reynolds’ career, which began with guest spots on TV staples like “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “The Twilight Zone,” and “The F.B.I.,” and regular parts on “Gunsmoke,” “Hawk,” and others. (Reynolds’ “F.B.I.” episode is faithfully recreated in the final act of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton stepping in for Reynolds.) Going through the films one by one, it’s fascinating to see how many oddities — some of them, like Sergio Corbucci’s “Navajo Joe,” legitimately terrific movies — Reynolds trudged through before “Deliverance,” and to read about them is to be reminded of the many false starts that led to that star-making role in 1972.

To be accurate, Reynolds was already a star before “Deliverance” — just not from any of his acting roles. Extremely likable, self-deprecating, and funny, Reynolds was one of the first actors to fully understand how to harness the talk-show circuit to his ends, and by the time “Deliverance” came out, he was well known for his appearances on the couches of Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin, and others. Those TV shows convinced audiences that Reynolds was a fun guy; John Boorman’s “Deliverance” convinced them that he could act, though his highly publicized centerfold shoot for “Cosmopolitan” made it tough for some in the industry to take him seriously.

‘Deliverance’ Warner Bros/Kobal/Shutterstock

The five years between “Deliverance” and “Smokey and the Bandit” yielded some of Reynolds’ most fascinating films, among them the elegiac and idiosyncratic Western “The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing,” the two Bogdanovich movies, and two great films for director Robert Aldrich, “The Longest Yard” and “Hustle.” Schneeberger and Neibar largely stick to the critical consensus on the films of this period, denigrating “At Long Last Love” and Stanley Donen’s “Lucky Lady” and blaming their failures — as Reynolds did — on their directors, but even where one might disagree with the authors’ value judgments, their research is impeccable, the irresistible behind-the-scenes stories and insights abundant.

Reynolds made a number of films in the mid-1970s (“White Lightning,” his directorial debut “Gator,” “W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings”) that laid the groundwork for the public perception of him as a good ol’ boy Southerner full of charm and mischief, a persona he would ride to the bank with “Smokey and the Bandit.” Just how huge that movie was in the culture is difficult to convey today, but in 1977, Burt was king, the only big-screen hero to rival Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in his popularity. Urban critics sneered, but audiences between the coasts saw themselves — or at least who they wanted to be — in Reynolds’ authority-defying bootlegger, and they kept “Smokey and the Bandit” in theaters for months.

“Smokey and the Bandit” was both the greatest thing that ever happened to Reynolds and the beginning of his downfall, as he tried to repeat its success in a series of car-crash comedies helmed by “Smokey” director Hal Needham, a stuntman whose considerable gifts for mayhem weren’t always enough to compensate for his shortcomings as a dramatist. “Smokey” follow-up “Hooper” was legitimately terrific, but as Needham and Reynolds continued repeating their formula on the “Cannonball Run” movies, “Smokey and the Bandit II,” and the embarrassing “Stroker Ace” (in which Reynolds suffered the indignity of dressing up as a chicken), artistic returns were diminishing — and eventually, the box office returns diminished as well.

Before “Stroker Ace” drove the cycle into the ground, however, Reynolds sat atop the box office charts for five straight years after “Smokey and the Bandit,” and those years (1978-1982) represent one of the greatest runs a movie star ever had, not just commercially but in terms of range of material and quality of performance. Even movies considered clunkers at the time of their release, like the comedy “Paternity,” look better in retrospect, and in between the car flicks, there are a lot of fantastic films. The divorce comedy “Starting Over” features one of Reynolds’ best performances thanks to a smart early James L. Brooks screenplay; “Rough Cut” is a charming caper flick with great late career work from director Don Siegel; and “Sharky’s Machine” proves Reynolds was just as good as Clint Eastwood when it came to both directing and performing in a gritty action register.

‘Rough Cut’ Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

Reynolds’ inability to sustain a career as artistically and commercially enduring as Eastwood’s is partly due to his sometimes astonishing knack for turning down movies he should have said yes to, and “The Burt Reynolds Films” has plenty of anecdotes about the ones that got away. Among the offers Reynolds either rejected or couldn’t accept because of scheduling conflicts were Robert Altman’s “M*A*S*H,” “Star Wars,” “Pretty Woman,” and “Die Hard.” Perhaps most painfully, he turned down James L. Brooks’ offer to play the role that would win Jack Nicholson an Oscar in “Terms of Endearment,” because it would have meant bailing on “Stroker Ace.”

Reynolds often lamented his bad choices later in life, but in the process, he — and the audiences who listened to him and took his regrets at face value — failed to appreciate the breadth of movies he did make. “Best Friends,” a movie about romance between creative people scripted by Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin, gave Reynolds a perfectly matched costar in Goldie Hawn, whose charisma and comic energy brought out the best in Reynolds — as did Dolly Parton in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” one of the last gasps of the big-budget Hollywood musical.

Then there was the wave of late-’80s crime films with one word titles (“Stick,” “Malone,” “Heat”) that suppressed Reynolds’ good cheer and humor but replaced it with something equally entertaining: a worn cragginess and intensity that indicated Reynolds could do the kinds of movies that had made Charles Bronson famous (the reverse, of course, was not true). Unfortunately, these movies and the others Reynolds made in the late 1980s — the action-comedy “Rent-A-Cop,” the Michael Crichton thriller “Physical Evidence,” an amiable “His Girl Friday” remake called “Switching Channels” — didn’t land with critics or audiences, and Reynolds entered the 1990s at a low point.

Given the glut of random cameos (“The Player,” “Bean,” “Meet Wally Sparks”) and straight-to-VHS programmers that characterized much of Reynolds’ 1990s output, Schneeberger and Neibaur abandon their film-by-film format after 1989’s “Breaking In” and devote individual chapters to only two of Reynolds’ later movies, “Striptease” and “Boogie Nights.” Reynolds’ well-publicized and baffling disdain for Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece — easily the best movie Reynolds was ever in and the best performance he ever gave — is amusingly recounted before the authors wrap things up with an overview of the actor’s 21st-century work.

That period didn’t yield much of interest, but Reynolds did have one final great role, in Adam Rifkin’s “The Last Movie Star.” Playing a thinly disguised version of himself, Reynolds is, as Schneeberger and Neibaur point out, funny, exasperating, and moving, and Rifkin’s impeccable tailoring of the role to fit his star gives Reynolds a wonderful summation with which to end his career. The same can be said of Schneeberger and Neibaur’s volume, a read that, like its subject, exhibits a breezy superficial charm before giving way to genuine depth and multiple rewards.

“The Burt Reynolds Films” is currently available from BearManor Media.