The Indelible Impact Burt Reynolds Had on Hollywood
The iconic actor, who was one of cinema’s biggest stars in the late ’70s and early ’80s, died Thursday at the age of 82.
Burt Reynolds’s acting career was a Hollywood story in and of itself. Born in Michigan in 1936, he bounced around the country with his family (also living in Missouri and Florida) before attending college on a football scholarship. An injury and subsequent car accident ended his athletic career in his sophomore year, but an English professor noted his talent for reading Shakespeare and encouraged him to go into acting. Small roles in theater and television followed, before he emerged as a major movie star in 1972’s.
