WWTBAM Bored

Age 82

themanintheseersuckersuit wrote:Age 82

He died Thursday morning at Jupiter Medical Center in Florida. The cause of death has not been released.

I enjoyed many of his roles, the least of which was Bandit. My favorite is probably Wood Newton in Evening Shade closely followed by Lewis in Deliverance.

R.I.P.

Burt had signed to appear in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, expected to be a major Oscar contender in 2020. I'm not sure how far along filming was. The film is loosely based on the Manson killings and Burt was going to play George Spahn, who owned a ranch out in the California desert where the Manson family lived for a while before the killings. Charlie Manson had the women in his family sleep with Spahn to keep him happy. This would have been a good farewell performance for Burt.

Much of his recent work was direct-to-video crap, but I recommend The Last Movie Star, in which Burt plays a fictionalized version of himself who accepts an award from a fourth-rate film festival and looks back at his career. There are scenes in which the old Burt is digitally inserted into scenes from Deliverance and Smoky and the Bandit "talking" with the younger Burt. It's a pretty good arthouse type of movie.

silverscreenselect wrote:Burt had signed to appear in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, expected to be a major Oscar contender in 2020. I'm not sure how far along filming was. The film is loosely based on the Manson killings and Burt was going to play George Spahn, who owned a ranch out in the California desert where the Manson family lived for a while before the killings. Charlie Manson had the women in his family sleep with Spahn to keep him happy. This would have been a good farewell performance for Burt.

Much of his recent work was direct-to-video crap, but I recommend The Last Movie Star, in which Burt plays a fictionalized version of himself who accepts an award from a fourth-rate film festival and looks back at his career. There are scenes in which the old Burt is digitally inserted into scenes from Deliverance and Smoky and the Bandit "talking" with the younger Burt. It's a pretty good arthouse type of movie.

I'll give The Last Movie Star 3.5 stars.

He looked horrible the last couple of times I saw him do an interview or appear in public.

I also liked Evening Shade but most of the rest of his work was not my thing. He did strike me as someone who was in on the joke, and didn't take himself too seriously.

Just read about his Florida State game against NC State, after which he said he wouldn't be trying for the NFL but would go to Hollywood and be a movie star. He did manage to play athletes fairly often, so it worked out.

I agree with Skoop, he looked terrible his last few appearances. I guess with his medical history, that's not surprising.

The football movies are his best, JMHO. But I've never seen any of the Smokey movies, which seem to be favorites.

Burt Reynolds Isn’t Broke, but He’s Got a Few Regrets

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/20 ... cy-regrets

Burt also had some important game show connections. He co-created and co-produced the classic game show Win, Lose or Draw, and regularly appeared as a guest panelist. The original set was even designed to look like Burt's actual living room at the time.

There is also a well-known prank that Burt pulled on Tom Kennedy (who is still alive today at age 91) during a taping of It's Your Bet. Tom asked Burt if he could spell the word "reservation", which Burt "thought" was an anti-Native American insult (on account of his Cherokee heritage). Burt threatened to assault Tom. Burt and the crew eventually exposed the ruse, prompting Tom to admit on camera, "I wet my pants".

On reflection, it seems I liked Evening Shade despite Burt Reynolds. I didn't hate his acting; but I didn't really like his character that much. He seemed to be the straight man to most of the others, which was fine.

Hal Holbrook and Michael Jeter were faves, also Elizabeth Ashley, Ossie Davis and Charles Durning.