LOS ANGELES – Julien’s Auctions, the world-record-breaking auction house, has announced its highly anticipated event Property from the Estate of Burt Reynolds to take place on Saturday, June 15 and Sunday, June 16, 2019 at The Standard Oil Building in Beverly Hills and live online through LiveAuctioneers. This special two-day event offers some of the most iconic and personal items of Hollywood legend, Burt Reynolds, the Emmy and Golden Globe winning and Oscar nominated actor who was Hollywood’s top-grossing star in the late 70s-early 80s.
Born Burton Leon Reynolds on Feb. 11, 1936, in Lansing, Michigan, and raised in Florida’s Palm Beach County, Reynolds first made a name for himself as a football star and earned an athletic scholarship to Florida State University. But his promising football career ended with injuries and Reynolds turned his sights to acting. After appearing in summer stock and plays, Reynolds moved to New York where he studied at the Actors Studio and landed a role in the New York City Center revival of “Mister Roberts” in 1957.
Television roles soon followed when Reynolds moved to Hollywood and nabbed roles on the westerns, Riverboat (NBC, 1959-1961) and Gunsmoke in 1962-196 (CBS, 1955-1977) as Quint Asper, the half-Comanche Dodge City blacksmith. But it was as outdoorsman Lewis Medlock in John Boorman’s 1972 classic thriller Deliverance (Warner Bros., 1972), about four friends who embark on a canoeing river trip into the dangerous American back-country that became Reynolds’ breakthrough role. The film went on to be nominated for three Oscars including Best Picture in 1973 around the same time Reynold’s status as a charismatic sex symbol was cemented when his now iconic Cosmopolitan centerfold sold a staggering 1.5 million copies. His mega stardom continued with his performances as an ex-football player Paul “Wrecking” Crewe in prison in The Longest Yard (1974), Semi-Tough (1977) and Hooper (1978).
Reynolds’ roles ranging from Southern heartthrob to comedic tough guy as well as his famous moustache and playful macho persona would contribute greatly to his iconography but it would be his role as Bo “Bandit” Darville in Smokey and the Bandit (Universal Pictures, 1977) that made Reynolds king of the box office and a 1970s and 1980s pop culture icon. Starring opposite Sally Field and written and directed by the legendary stuntman Hal Needham, the comedic action film grossed $126 million and spawned a film franchise as well as boffo sales of the Pontiac Trans-Am that his character Bandit drives in the film. Reynolds went on to star in The Cannonball Run (20th Century Fox, 1981), the fun, high octane film that spawned another franchise and other films including, Sharky’s Machine (Warner Bros., 1981), one of many films and television shows which he also directed, all of which made Reynolds Hollywood’s No. 1 box-office attraction from 1978-1982.
Reynolds demonstrated his romantic comedy side in Starting Over (Paramount Pictures, 1979) opposite Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen; The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Universal Pictures, 1982) with Dolly Parton; Best Friends (Warner Bros., 1982) with Goldie Hawn and The Man Who Loved Women (1983) with Julie Andrews. He earned People’s Choice Awards in 1979, 1982 and 1983 as all-around male entertainer of the year and won an Emmy award for his role as Woodrow “Wood” Newton, a former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback who returns to his hometown to coach high school football in the 1990-94 CBS sitcom Evening Shade. In 1998, Reynolds won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in his portrayal of porn film producer Jack Horner in the film “Boogie Nights,” and earned an Oscar nomination for the role.
In addition to his renowned career as one of Hollywood’s most popular leading men, Reynolds also made his mark as a director, producer, author and philanthropist who founded the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film & Theatre in his home state of Florida. Reynolds was cast in the upcoming film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” directed by Quentin Tarantino but had not yet started shooting his appearance in the film at the time of his death. Reynolds died at the age of 82 on September 6, 2018 in Jupiter, Florida.
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