The Probert Encyclopaedia of Actors

BURT REYNOLDS

Burt Reynolds (Burton Leon Reynolds Junior) is an American actor. He was born in 1936 at Waycross, Georgia. He tried a career in American football, but gave up the chance for acting after a car accident injured his knee. He then began to act in theater plays. During the 1960s, he made his way in Hollywood by appearing in television series, until his great chance in the 1972 film Deliverance. He posed naked for the central page of the 'Cosmopolitan' magazine and he became a box office hit in several films that explored his dexterity in dangerous scenes and his malicious and cynic personality. In 1977, his film Smokey and the Bandit was well attended and to this today it is one of the most-seen films. He proved his other talents behind the cameras in the 1981 'Sharky's Machine', based on William Diehl's romance, in which he left the image of good ol'boy and began to make more sophisticated films. During the filming of the 1984 movie 'City Heat' beside Clint Eastwood, he was hurt by a chair and broke his jaw. In 1990, his
career won a new breath with the television's series 'Evening Shade', but a troubled divorce interfered. Burt Reynolds's big comeback came in 1998, following the 1997 film Boogie Nights that led to further big roles.
Research Burt Reynolds