Hollywood legend Burt Reynolds, star of films like “Boogie Nights” and “Deliverance,” has died at 82. He reportedly died Thursday morning at Jupiter Medical Center in Florida.
The actor, director and producer was born in Lansing, Mich., in 1936, and played football at Florida State University before an injury dashed hopes of a football career.
He launched his acting career in Western TV shows like “Gunsmoke” and “Dan August,” but his breakout film role was in thriller “Deliverance” in 1972. He was Hollywood’s top-grossing star each year from 1978 through 1982, during which he starred in the 1997 hit film “Smokey and the Bandit” with Sally Field. He also became a sex symbol after posing nude for Cosmopolitan magazine in 1972.
Reynolds made a comeback in 1997 with Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights,” for which he was nominated an Oscar. Reynolds had mixed feelings about the film in spite of the acclaim. In 2015, he admitted to GQ that he did not get along with Anderson and said he most likely would not work with him again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he was so unhappy when he first saw the film that he fired his agent over it. Though the actor lost the Oscar that year to Robin Williams, he did win a Golden Globe for the role.
Reynolds recently starred in “The Last Movie Star,” which was released in March, about the story of a forgotten Hollywood icon.
Reynolds suffered from several health issues over the past decade. In 2013, he was admitted to the intensive care unit of a Florida hospital due to dehydration and severe flu symptoms. In 2010, Reynolds underwent a quintuple heart bypass one year after entering rehab to end a reliance on prescription drug habit acquired after back surgery.
