I'm pretty sure the first time I ever saw the charismatic, mustached leading man was as bootlegger Bo Darville in 1977's Smokey and the Bandit.
I was six and as usual on Saturday afternoons my mom and I caught a movie after our weekly errands. She loved both Burt (said he reminded her of my dad) and Sally Field (they were born in the same year) so I really didn't have a choice on what flick we were catching that opening weekend. But the preview promised plenty of car chases and laughs so I was game and by the end of the film I became a life-long fan of the smooth-talking smart aleck with the devilish grin and one-of-a-kind laugh.
The next year came Hooper, then Smokey and the Bandit II and the Cannonball Run films. They were fun, often silly, usually politically incorrect and I loved each and every one of them. Still do.
Not every Burt film carried a PG rating when I was a kid but I usually found a way to catch gritty adult titles like Sharky's Machine (an ON-TV staple a buddy and I watched incessantly after school) and Stick (a New Year's Eve VHS rental my mom was more than willing to sanction).
By the late '80s Burt's star had begun to fade, but I was always interested in what he was doing. Whether he was playing an aging safecracker in the character-driven Breaking In, Wood Newton in the CBS series Evening Shade, Jack Horner in Boogie Nights or Vic Edwards in this year's The Last Movie Star, I kept tabs on Burt Reynolds and was always glad to see him staying relevant, still making people smile.
Burt Reynolds was one of a kind, not just an actor, but a personality. Someone who indelibly weaves themselves into the fabric of society and our lives. And when we lose them, it's like losing a piece of ourselves. But at least we still have his films to help us fill that void. The Last Movie Star, indeed.
