Actor Burt Reynolds dies at 82


Burt Reynolds, the legendary actor who brought his trademark swagger to dozens of films and TV shows over a decades-long career, has died at the age of 82.
Reynolds' manager, Erik Kritzer, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the actor died Thursday morning at Jupiter Medical Center in Florida. TMZ is reporting that Reynolds went into cardiac arrest and that his family was by his side when he died. The actor had been dealing with various health issues over the past few years, having had heart surgery in 2010 and having been hospitalized with flu symptoms in 2013, People reports.
Born in 1936, Reynolds rose to fame in part due to his role as Quint Asper on Gunsmoke, which helped him transition into an extraordinarily successful movie career. While he made his film debut in 1961, it was 1972's Deliverance that kickstarted a truly phenomenal run for the actor, who was quite prolific throughout the 1970s and 1980s, starring in back-to-back hit action and comedy films like Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run. He was so prolific, in fact, that he at one time had four separate movies in theaters at once, The Hollywood Reporter notes. In 1997, Reynolds was nominated for his first and only Academy Award for playing porn director Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights.
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Reynolds had not stopped working in recent years, and he had been announced as part of the cast of Quentin Tarantino's new film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which hits theaters in July 2019. However, Reynolds had not yet filmed his scenes, having been scheduled to do so in a few weeks, and thus the role will need to be recast, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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