Before settling into a career as colorful character actor, Burt Reynolds enjoyed quite a long period as a latter-day Clark Gable, with much of the same virile charm that engaged both male and female audiences. Born in 1936 in Waycross, Ga., Reynolds was raised in Palm Beach, Fla., and won a football scholarship at Florida State University. He got his start in television, gaining attention in Riverboat (1959-1960) and Gunsmoke (1962-1965) and moving on to leads in Hawk (1966) and Dan August (1970-1971).

Reynolds had appeared in movies since the early 1960s, beginning as a stuntman. His breakthrough year was 1972. He showed his knack for both comedy and melodrama in Fuzz (1972), in which he stars as a cop on the trail of mad bomber Yul Brynner. In John Boorman's harrowing Deliverance (1972), Reynolds gives a star-making performance as the most macho of four urbanites bent on testing themselves on a backwoods river in Georgia.

The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973) gave Reynolds another important star part as an outlaw who avenges the murder of his Indian-American wife. With White Lightning (1973), he showed an aptitude for good-ole-boy action films that would hit its peak with Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and its popular sequels.

Reynolds displayed his considerable acting skills in such films as the football comedy-drama The Longest Yard (1974) and, especially, the romantic comedy Starting Over (1979). But he mostly seemed content during his heyday to turn out throwaway action/comedy movies, some of which he also directed.

After a difficult period in his life and career, Reynolds surprised everyone with his trenchant performance as a porn director in Boogie Nights (1997), which brought him his first Oscar nomination (as Best Supporting Actor). Ever since, he has been working regularly as a character actor in films of variable quality. He has several theatrical films in the works for 2005, including Adam Sandler's remake of The Longest Yard in which Reynolds takes on the role of coach.

The movies in TCM's tribute to Burt Reynolds are White Lightning (1973), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Deliverance (1972), Fuzz (1972) and The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973).

by Roger Fristoe