Actually, Reynolds has eight movies coming out this year. And for his fans, it must be starting to feel a lot like 1978 again. That was the year the actor was coming off Smokey and the Bandit and Semi-Tough and starred in such hits as The End (which he also directed) and Hooper. It was also the year that Reynolds was anointed the No. 1 movie star in the land—kicking off an unprecedented five-year run as the top draw in America. Something neither Tom Cruise nor Tom Hanks has been able to duplicate. He was dating America's sweetheart, Sally Field. Women swooned at the sight of him. Men wanted to grab a beer with him. In 1978, it was impossible to be bigger than Burt Reynolds.
But then suddenly the movies got smaller. Or at least his did.
After his football injury, Reynolds was unable to walk for months. Realizing that his playing career was dead, he limped as far away from sports as he could: the drama department. ''There were a lot of really good-looking ladies there,'' he says, laughing his sly Bandit's laugh. ''It was a weird feeling. I walked on stage having never been in anything before in my life, and I felt like I did when I walked on the football field. I wasn't nervous. I was totally at home.''
Reynolds dropped out of college and moved to New York, where he shared a $44-a-month fleabag apartment in Hell's Kitchen with another wannabe actor — a Texan named Rip Torn. One day, Torn told his roommate that he'd found him a job on TV. Only later did Reynolds find out that the job required him to be set on fire. Still, he took it and started to moonlight as a stuntman. Recalling a stunt he did on his early-'70s TV show called Dan August, Reynolds says, ''I was supposed to run into a burning building and run out with a baby. It was so hot when I got in there that there was this melted piece of s--- that was supposed to be the baby and there was no way out. The door was gone. So I jumped through the window and hurt my shoulder. It was stupid macho bulls---, but I did it because I wasn't sure if I was good enough as an actor.''
A utility player with good looks, Reynolds landed a $125-a-week contract with Universal in 1958. There he became friends with another young actor, Clint Eastwood. ''Universal had contracts with the Miss Universes. And I don't care what Clint says, but he cut a swath through the Miss Universes.'' Says Eastwood with a laugh, ''Burt likes to tell stories.'' Both young actors were soon cast on TV shows — Eastwood on Rawhide and Reynolds on Gunsmoke, playing blacksmith Quint Asper for three seasons.
Reynolds bounced around unmemorably on both big screen and small until landing his breakout film, 1972's Deliverance. ''That script changed my life,'' he says. ''It was the only movie in 40-something years that I knew was going to be big.'' Reynolds played Lewis Medlock, the alpha male among a group of four friends who go on a canoeing trip on Georgia's treacherous Cahulawassee River. These days, the movie's title has become shorthand for backwoods hicks playing banjos and the sodomizing of poor Ned Beatty, but Deliverance also showcased Reynolds at his most magnetic. He came off like a macho daredevil, showing off both his inner stuntman and his chops as a serious dramatic actor.
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