Burt Reynolds starred as Lewis Medlock in the 1972 thriller Deliverance.Photo:Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
Then he was cast in the thrillerDeliverance, alongside actorsJon Voigtand Ned Beatty.
However, just after he wrapped shooting the film, he did something he thought would be both funny and make a statement: He posed naked for a centerfold inCosmopolitanmagazine, at the request of gutsy editor Helen Gurley Brown. The move cemented his place as a sex symbol, but he later confessed that it damaged his career as a serious actor, just as it was taking off.
In the documentaryI Am Burt Reynolds, now airing on the CW, footage shows that Reynolds expressed regret over the move.
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“I never would have done it if I didn’t haveDeliverancein the can,” he said during an interview in the documentary. He had no idea that Hollywood’s biggest directors would find it crass, instead of hilarious.
Burt Reynolds in the Cosmopolitan centerfold.
“It was for laughs,” he said of posing naked. “It was a take off on the whole male chauvinist attitude ofPlayboy, and they’re making a comment and they’re right.”
Director Adam Rifkin, who directed Reynolds inThe Last Movie Star, shared in the documentary the impact of the shoot on the actor.
“Suddenly he was sex symbol Burt Reynolds instead of serious actor. He always believed that photo killed his opportunity to get an Oscar nomination forDeliverance,“Rifkin said.
Reynolds' niece, Nancy Lee Hess, also spoke about the moment duringI Am Burt Reynolds, saying, “Everyone else enjoyed it, but I don’t think it was something Hollywood approved of.”
However, Jon Voight disagreed with that sentiment in another clip shown in the documentary.
“It did not [ruin his career.] It enhanced it. It was a gutsy move. It was his humor. Burt always had a sense of humor in every decision he made,” Voight said with a laugh during an interview.
In his 1994 autobiography,My Life,has also said that women began to throw themselves (even more) aggressively at him than they ever had before after the photo shoot.
“Standing ovations turned into burlesque show hoots and catcalls. They cared more about my pubes than they did about the play,” he wrote.
The actor later discussed theCosmopolitanshoot with Steve Harvey in March 2018, not long before his death fromcongestive failure in 2018.
“I didn’t know there was going to be a commotion about it,” he said. “It wasn’t a big deal to me. I said, ‘I’ll do it, but I’ll have to have my hands…in front of me.'”
Reynolds then jokedabout the size of his manhood, adding, “And I have very small hands.”
source: people.com
