Theater The drama award Reynolds won in junior college included a scholarship to the Hyde Park Playhouse, a
summer stock theater in
Hyde Park, New York. Reynolds considered the opportunity as an agreeable alternative to more physically demanding summer jobs, but did not yet consider acting as a possible career. While working there, Reynolds met
Joanne Woodward, who helped him find an agent. "I don't think I ever actually saw him perform," said Woodward. "I knew him as this cute, shy, attractive boy. He had the kind of lovely personality that made you want to do something for him." After the tour, Reynolds returned to New York City and enrolled in acting classes, along with
Frank Gifford,
Carol Lawrence,
Red Buttons, and
Jan Murray. "I was a working actor for two years before I finally took my first real acting class (with
Wynn Handman at the Neighborhood Playhouse)," he said. "It was a lot of technique, truth, moment-to-moment, how to listen, improv." After the play closed, director
John Forsythe arranged a movie audition with
Joshua Logan for Reynolds. The movie was
Sayonara (1957). Reynolds was told that he could not be in the movie because he looked too much like Marlon Brando. Logan advised Reynolds to go to
Hollywood, although Reynolds did not feel confident enough to do so. (Another source says that Reynolds did a screen test after studio talent agent
Lew Wasserman saw the effect that Reynolds had on secretaries in his office, but the test was unsuccessful.) Reynolds worked in a variety of jobs, such as waiting tables, washing dishes, driving a delivery truck, and as a
bouncer at the
Roseland Ballroom. He wrote that while working as a
dockworker, he was offered $150 to jump through a glass window on a live television show.
Early television and Riverboat in
Riverboat as
William Shakespeare in
The Twilight Zone featuring Reynolds parodying
look-alike Marlon Brando Reynolds began acting for television during the late 1950s, with guest roles on shows such as
Flight,
M Squad,
Schlitz Playhouse,
The Lawless Years, and
Pony Express. He signed a seven-year contract with Universal Studios. "I don't care whether he can act or not," said Wasserman. "Anyone who has this effect on women deserves a break." Reynolds subsequently said that he "couldn't get a job. I didn't have a very good reputation. You just don't walk out on a network television series." In 1961, he returned to
Broadway to appear in ''Look, We've Come Through'', directed by
José Quintero, but it lasted only five performances. Reynolds continued to guest-star on episodes of
Naked City,
Ripcord,
Everglades,
Route 66,
Perry Mason, and
The Twilight Zone ("
The Bard", an hour-long send-up of Reynolds's
look-alike Marlon Brando). He later said, "I learned more about my craft in these guest shots than I did standing around and looking virile on
Riverboat."
Gunsmoke '', 1962 In 1962,
Dennis Weaver wanted to quit the cast of
Gunsmoke, one of the top-rated shows in the country. The producers developed a new character, "half-breed"
blacksmith Quint Asper. Reynolds was cast, chosen over 300 other contenders. He announced that he would stay on the show "until it ends. I think it's a terrible mistake for an actor to leave a series in the middle of it." He played another Native American in the
spaghetti Western film
Navajo Joe (1966), which was filmed in Spain. He said, "It wasn't my favorite picture." He later said, "I had two expressions—mad and madder." He guest-starred in
Gentle Ben, and made a pilot for a TV series,
Lassiter, in which he would have played a magazine journalist. It did not develop into a series. Reynolds made a series of movies in quick succession:
Shark! (1969), filmed in Mexico, was directed by
Sam Fuller, who removed his name from it, after which its release was held up for a number of years. Reynolds described
Fade In as "the best thing I've ever done", but it was not released for a number of years, and off of which director
Jud Taylor took his name.
Impasse (1969) was a war movie filmed in the Philippines. Reynolds plays the title role in
Sam Whiskey (1969), a comic Western written by
William W. Norton, which Reynolds later said was "way ahead of its time. I was playing light comedy and nobody cared." In a 1969 interview, Reynolds expressed interest in playing roles like the John Garfield part in
The Postman Always Rings Twice, but no one gave him the opportunity. "Instead, the producer hands me a script and says 'I know it's not there now kid, but I know we can make it work.'"
Dan August and talk shows Reynolds played the title character in the police television drama
Dan August (1970–71), produced by
Quinn Martin. Reynolds had previously guest-starred in two episodes of Martin's production
The F.B.I. The series was given a full-season order of 26 episodes, based on the reputation of Martin and Reynolds, but it struggled in the ratings against
Hawaii Five-0 and was not renewed.
Albert R. Broccoli asked Reynolds to play
James Bond after
Sean Connery, but Reynolds declined the role, saying, "An American can't play James Bond. It just can't be done." After the cancelation of the series, Reynolds appeared in his first stage play in six years; a production of
The Tender Trap at Arlington Park Theatre. He was offered other TV pilots, but was reluctant to play a detective again. Around this time, he had become well known as a charismatic talk-show guest, starting with an appearance on
The Merv Griffin Show. He made jokes at his own expense, calling himself America's most "well-known unknown", who made the kind of movies "they show in airplanes or prisons or anywhere else the people can't get out". He proved to be popular and was frequently asked back by
Griffin and
Johnny Carson; he also guest hosted
The Tonight Show. He later said that his talk-show appearances were "the best thing that ever happened to me. They changed everything drastically overnight. I spent 10 years looking virile, saying, 'Put up your hands.' After the Carson, Griffin,
Frost,
Dinah's show, suddenly I have a personality." "I realized that people liked me, that I was enough," said Reynolds. "So if I could transfer that character—the irreverent, self-deprecating side of me, my favorite side of me—onto the screen, I could have a big career."
The Godfather and Marlon Brando feud Reynolds was considered for the role of
Sonny Corleone in
The Godfather, but
Francis Ford Coppola's desire to cast
James Caan in the part prevailed. Talk arose that Reynolds's participation was vetoed by Marlon Brando, who had a lack of respect for him. Brando denied that he played a role in thwarting the casting of Reynolds, saying in a January 1979
Playboy interview that Coppola would not have cast Reynolds in the part. Reynolds later claimed that he declined the role of Sonny. (
The Godfather producer Albert S. Ruddy later produced
The Cannonball Run and
Cannonball Run II, two Reynolds movie successes during the 1980s.) The Brando-Reynolds feud became Hollywood legend. Reynolds said that he could not understand Brando's enmity toward him. In a 2015 interview with
The Guardian, Reynolds said, "He was a strange man. He didn't like me at all." He did not consciously imitate Brando, nor act like him, nor try to look like him; he even grew a mustache so that people would stop saying that he looked like Brando. When he was finally introduced to Brando, Reynolds said that he told him that he was the finest actor in the world. Brando replied, "I wish I could say the same for you." Around this time, Reynolds also gained notoriety when he began a well-publicized relationship with
Dinah Shore, who was 20 years his senior, and after he posed nude in the April 1972 issue of
Cosmopolitan. Reynolds said that he posed for
Cosmopolitan for "a kick. I have a strange sense of humor," and because he knew that
Deliverance was about to be released.
Deliverance was a commercial and critical success, which along with talk-show appearances, helped establish Reynolds as a major
movie actor. "The night of the Academy Awards, I counted a half-dozen Burt Reynolds jokes," he later said. "I had become a household name, the most talked-about star at the award show." Reynolds had the title role of
Shamus (1973), playing a private detective. The movie drew lackluster reviews, but nonetheless became a box-office success. Reynolds described it as "not a bad film, kind of cute".
White Lightning and Southern movies Another turning point in Reynolds's career came when he made the light-hearted car-chase film written by William W. Norton,
White Lightning (1973). Reynolds later called it "the beginning of a whole series of films made in the South, about the South, and for the South... you could make back the cost of the negative just in Memphis alone. Anything outside of that was just gravy." Reynolds told
Business Insider in 2016, "I just didn't want to play that kind of role at the time. ...Now I regret it. I wish I would have done it."
Directorial work Reynolds made his directorial debut in 1976 with
Gator, the sequel to
White Lightning, written by Norton. "I waited 20 years to do it [directing] and I enjoyed it more than anything I've ever done in this business," he said after filming. "And I happen to think it's what I do best." He was reunited with Bogdanovich for the comedy
Nickelodeon (1976), which was a commercial disappointment. Aldrich later commented, "Bogdanovich can get him to do the telephone book! Anybody else has to persuade him to do something. He's fascinated by Bogdanovich. I can't understand it." He turned down the part of
Clark Gable in
Gable and Lombard. More popular was a comedy that he made with Needham and Field,
Hooper (1978), in which he played an aging
stunt man. "My ability as an actor gets a little better every time," he said about this time. "I'm very prolific in the amount of films I make—two-and-a-half or three a year—and when I look at any picture I do now compared to
Deliverance, it's miles above what I was doing then. But when you're doing films that are somewhat similar to each other, as I've been doing, people take it for granted." For
California Suite (1978), Reynolds declined a leading role, which went to
Alan Alda.
Career decline James L. Brooks wrote the role of astronaut Garrett Breedlove in
Terms of Endearment (1983) with Reynolds in mind. However, Reynolds refused the role, and instead starred in another car-chase comedy
Stroker Ace (1983), directed by Needham. The
Endearment part went to
Jack Nicholson, who won an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Reynolds said in 1987, "I felt I owed Hal more than I owed Jim," but
Stroker Ace failed. Reynolds admitted that refusing the role was a mistake. I regret that one most of all because it was a real acting part.... I wish I would have done it, and thinking back now, it was really a stupid decision, but I made a lot of stupid decisions in that period. It must have been my stupid period. In 1983, an unnamed producer said that while Reynolds's salaries would not decrease because of
Stroker Aces failure, "if two or three more such pictures don't work, people will just stop putting him in that kind of movie and that's the kind of film for which he gets paid the most". Reynolds felt that it was a turning point in his career from which he never recovered. "That's where I lost them," he said of his fans. , Burt Reynolds, and
Loni Anderson at the premiere of
City Heat (1984) For director
Blake Edwards, Reynolds starred in
The Man Who Loved Women (1983), a remake in English of
François Truffaut's 1977 film ''
L'Homme qui aimait les femmes'', but it also failed. In an interview at about this time, he said: Getting to the top has turned out to be a hell of a lot more fun than staying there. I've got
Tom Selleck crawling up my back. I'm in my late 40s. I realize I have four or five more years where I can play certain kinds of parts and get away with it. That's why I'm leaning more and more toward directing and producing. I don't want to be stumbling around town doing
Gabby Hayes parts a few years from now. I'd like to pick and choose and maybe go work for a perfume factory like Mr.
Cary Grant, and look wonderful with everybody saying, 'Gee, I wish he hadn't retired'. The moderately successful animated film
All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), in which Reynolds voiced Charlie B. Barkin, was one of his few successes at the time. "When I was doing very well," he said at the time, "I wasn't conscious I was doing very well, but I became very conscious when I wasn't doing very well. The atmosphere changed."
Return to TV: B.L. Stryker and Evening Shade Reynolds returned to television with the
detective series with
B.L. Stryker (1989–90). It ran two seasons, during which time Reynolds played a supporting part in
Modern Love (1990). Reynolds starred in the situation comedy television series,
Evening Shade (1990–94) as former
Pittsburgh Steelers player Woodward "Wood" Newton. The series was a considerable success, with 98 episodes over four seasons. This role earned him a
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Reynolds credited this role for his membership in
Steeler Nation. During his tenure on
Evening Shade, Reynolds played in other projects, starting with a cameo in
The Player (1992) (playing himself complaining about people in Hollywood). Reynolds starred in the
crime film Cop and a Half (1993). On August 25, the
Randy Travis television special
Wind in the Wire first aired; Reynolds was among the guests. On October 15,
CBS first broadcast the television movie
The Man from Left Field, co-featuring
Reba McEntire. Reynolds starred and directed.
Character actor After
Evening Shade ended in 1994, Reynolds played the lead in a horror movie,
The Maddening (1995). He gradually became more of a character actor, though; he had major support roles in
Citizen Ruth (1996), an early work from
Alexander Payne, and
Striptease (1996) with
Demi Moore. Reynolds had to audition for
Striptease. The movie's producer later said, "To be honest, we were not enthusiastic at first. There was the hair and his reputation, but we were curious... At the first audition, on the first day, Burt had to take off his
toupee in front of six or seven people. It was tough for him, but he did it. It was a very, very humbling thing to do, but by the end of the audition, it was really clear that Burt was the guy." Reynolds accepted a salary of $350,000;