Would Tarantino Role Have Tarnished Burt Reynolds' Legacy?
by EG
Quentin Tarantino's movies have given a boost to many an aging career, but in light of accusations of misconduct against the director, being associated with him is not as shiny a prospect as it used to be. Burt Reynolds was set to star in Tarantino's upcoming film, but would it have been a good idea for Reynolds' career? Read on for more.
Just three months ago, in mid-June, Burt Reynolds was in Los Angeles attending a table reading — alongside Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie and Kurt Russell — for the film that was supposed to mark his next big resurgence. Instead, sadly, Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood turned out to be Reynolds' final dashed hope for movie star redemption.
The 82-year-old actor, who died Sept. 6 of heart failure just weeks before he was to start shooting his scenes for Tarantino's film, had been working on a John Travolta-style career reboot for years. This time, though, at that table reading, a turnaround seemed palpably plausible. After all, his performance in 2017's The Last Movie Star, a low-budget indie about a 1970s film icon struggling with the indignities of old age, had already plowed the field, garnering positive press on the festival circuit. (Reynolds had even contemplated an Oscar campaign for the film.) In fact, it was the reason Tarantino cast Reynolds in his new movie — a multi-threaded drama set in L.A. during the Manson murders in the summer of 1969 — a point the director wasn't shy about sharing with Pitt, DiCaprio and the others at the reading.
"Burt told me Quentin made a big deal of saying, in front of everyone, how great he was in The Last Movie Star," says the film's director Adam Rifkin, who became close friends with Reynolds. "So he was in a good place before he died. He was over the moon about Tarantino casting him. He thought he might have one last act in front of him."
Given Reynolds' first and second acts, a third could have been a doozy. Forty years ago, he was the biggest star on the planet, No. 1 at the box office five years in a row, starting with hits like 1972's Deliverance, 1974's Longest Yard and 1977's Smokey and the Bandit. His net worth during his most profitable period — 1977 to 1981 — has been estimated to be as high as $30 million ($92 million in today's dollars). He owned multiple homes, including a mansion in Holmby Hills, two doors down from Barbra Streisand, where he kept a motor pool of 30 cars, including a Rolls Royce Corniche and a 1956 Lincoln Mark II. "His favorite was a Pontiac station wagon with wood paneling," says Brad Herman, who started out, in 1980, as Reynolds' garage boy and worked his way up to becoming a financial manager. "That was his incognito car."
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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