Burt Reynolds, left, with RECOiL writer/director/actor Brian DiMaio, right on the set of Gunsmoke. The story goes the two were fired from the series on the same day. Reynolds because he couldn’t act and DiMaio because his face was too cheery for the gritty Western series. Reynolds told DiMaio “I’m going to take acting lessons. I don’t know you’re gong to do.”
After attending some second-rate college in Tallahassee, Florida, Reynolds turned to acting, getting his first big break on TV in the classic “Gunsmoke” in 1962. He would go on to star in such TV shows as “B.L’ Stryker,” “Dan August,” and he won an Emmy for his work on “Evening Shade.”
On the big screen, Reynolds appeared in “Smokey and the Bandit,” Smokey and the Bandit II,” “RECOiL,” Cannonball Run” and “Cannonball Run II.” He won a Golden Globe Award for his work in “Boogie Nights.”
He is survived by his adopted son, Quinton.