Burt Reynolds obituary
No Hollywood star has exposed his emotions, his love life, career and ambitions, or his body, quite as openly as did Burt Reynolds, who has died aged 82. He acted in scores of films, directing many of them, and produced and appeared in hundreds of TV movies and series. Many were eminently forgettable, though a role in Boogie Nights (1997) won him a best supporting actor Oscar nomination. It was his extravagant and explosive lifestyle, aspects of which affected his career, that often made the headlines.
In 1972, the year of his breakthrough in Deliverance, widely regarded as his best work, he became America’s first male centrefold, appearing nude in Cosmopolitan. The magazine sold 1.5m copies and this photograph was discussed more than his performance as the belligerent adventurer Lewis. The publicity upset conservative Hollywood and possibly cost him abest actor Oscar nomination; in a 2015 interview he said that he regretted having done the shoot.
Further notoriety came from his marriages, the first to the comedian , the second to the actor Loni Anderson. Both ended in divorce, the latter acrimoniously in 1995, after an 18-month dispute over his wealth and the custody of a son, Quinton. Long and widely publicised affairs with other actors, including and Dyan Cannon, and with the singer , who was many years his senior, also fuelled the publicity machine. Reynolds said that Shore taught him about the finer things in life and Field was the person .
