Actor Burt Reynolds has passed away of cardiopulmonary arrest at the age of 82 after many years of health issues.
Whether Reynolds appeared in Gunsmoke or on a guest spot in Burn Notice, he had a larger than life presence about him.
His box office peak came during the mid-1970's through the early 1980's with several Smokey & The Bandit films, The Longest Yard, Semi-Tough, The Cannonball Run and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. In the early 1990's, he starred in the CBS TV series Evening Shade with Marilu Henner. Reynolds would finally earn an Oscar nomination for his performance in Boogie Nights with Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.
But the film for which he should have received an Oscar nomination was Deliverance. Reynolds more than held his own with Jon Voight and newcomers Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty. Lewis Medlock was the most outwardly dark and cynical among the foursome, but this darkness and cynicism was accompanied by a world weary wisdom. Unfortunately for Reynolds and Deliverance, this was the year of The Godfather and there was simply no stopping it.
Reynolds never appeared to take himself too seriously whether during his many appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson as a guest or a host or his involvement with the game show Win, Lose or Draw hosted by his friend Burt Convy. While it's lamentable that Reynolds didn't take on more substantive roles in his career as he did in Deliverance, he was nevertheless a movie star and people came to see him and came away happy. In this respect Burt Reynolds always delivered. R.I.P.
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