Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds (born February 11, 1936) is an American actor, director and producer. He starred in many television and film roles, such as Dan August, Deliverance, The Longest Yard with its 2005 remake Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run. He also won two Golden Globe Awards, including in Evening Shade for Best Actor in a Television Series Musical or Comedy and in Boogie Nights for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture.

Biography

Relationships

Reynolds was a good friend to: His Late Best Friend Dom DeLuise (1933–2009), Inger Stevens, Tammy Wynette, Lucie Arnaz, Adrienne Barbeau, Susan Clark, Sally Field, Lorna Luft, Tawny Little, Pam Seals, Dinah Shore (which garnered particular attention given the fact that she was 20 years his senior) and Chris Evert. Reynolds was married to Judy Carne from 1963 to 1965, and Loni Anderson from 1988 to 1993, with whom he adopted a son, Quinton.


Atlanta nightclub
In the late 1970s, Reynolds opened "Burt's Place", a restaurant/nightclub in the Omni International Hotel in the Hotel District of downtown Atlanta, Georgia.


Sports team owner
In 1982, Reynolds became a co-owner of the Tampa Bay Bandits, a professional American football team in the USFL whose nickname was inspired by his Smokey and the Bandit movies and Skoal Bandit which was a primary sponsor for the team which happened because they also sponsored Burt's race team. Reynolds also co-owned a NASCAR Winston Cup team, Mach 1 Racing, with Hal Needham, which ran the #33 Skoal Bandit car with driver Harry Gant.


Health
While filming City Heat, Reynolds was struck in the face with a metal chair, which broke his jaw and left him with temporomandibular joint dysfunction. He lost 30 pounds as a result of having to restrict his eating, and the analgesics he was prescribed for the pain afterwards led to an addiction he needed several years to break. Reynolds underwent back surgery in May 2009 and a quintuple heart bypass in February 2010. He had trouble eating, which caused him to lose weight and led to rumours that he had AIDS.


Homes
On August 16, 2011, Merrill Lynch Credit Corporation filed foreclosure papers in Martin County, claiming Reynolds owed US$1.2 million on his Hobe Sound, Florida, home. He owned the Burt Reynolds Ranch, where scenes for Smokey and the Bandit were filmed and once had a petting zoo, until its sale during bankruptcy. In April 2014, the 153-acre rural property was rezoned for residential use so the Palm Beach County school system could sell it to residential developer K. Hovnanian Homes.

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