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Burt Reynolds, the biggest American star of the seventies and some of the eighties to boot, has passed away of a heart attack, it has been announced. He rose from college football to acting in TV Westerns, then graduated to the movies, initially in the same genre (Navajo Joe, 100 Rifles, Sam Whiskey), but as the sixties became the seventies, be became the good ol' boy celebrity the world embraced. Boosted by his knack for a great interview, audiences started flocking to his movies: Deliverance, Shamus, White Lightning, The Longest Yard, Gator and more. In 1977 he teamed up with stuntman Hal Needham for Smokey and the Bandit, second only to Star Wars in its success that year.
There followed Semi-Tough, The End, Hooper, The Cannonball Run, Sharkey's Machine and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, but his career faltered in the mid-eighties with middling to poor choices and well-publicised problems in his private life. After hit sitcom Evening Shade, an Oscar nomination for Boogie Nights in the nineties seemed to herald a renaissance, but his dislike for it sabotaged his career and he was once again stuck in the doldrums. Sadly, a role in the new Quentin Tarantino movie could have done him wonders, but he has died before it has been finished. An icon of easygoing masculinity with a roguish charm, he was a true one-off. |
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