Burt Reynolds, who died on Thursday at the age of 82, had a hugely impressive career… but even with his starry resume, he turned down some of the most famous movie roles of all time. “They all would’ve changed my career, without a doubt,” Reynolds said of all the roles he turned down that went on to be huge successes in his memoir “But Enough About Me.” “I would’ve been offered all kinds of roles. You know, how much can you do in a ‘Smokey and the Bandit? '” Below, a list of every painfully successful leading role Reynolds turned down over the course of his 60-year-long career. James Bond One of Reynolds’ biggest regrets was not playing James Bond. His excuse? That the public wouldn’t accept an American playing 007 — and he said as much to producer Cubby Broccoli, who offered him the role after Sean Connery retired. “It was a stupid thing to say,” Reynolds told USA Today in 2015. “I could’ve done it and I could’ve done it well.” Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” Reynolds also turned down the role of Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” but this is one he didn’t regret. In an interview with Andy Cohen on “Watch What Happens Live,” he acknowledged the rumor that Marlon Brando threatened to quit if Reynolds came on board. “I was flattered that he was upset,” he said. Han Solo in “Star Wars” “I just didn’t want to play that kind of role at the time,” he told Business Insider in 2016 of the role that eventually went to Harrison Ford. “Now I regret it. I wish I would have done it.” Richard Gere’s Role in “Pretty Woman” Despite telling the Sydney Morning Herald in 2016, “If there was a pretty leading lady I would do it no matter how bad the part was,” Reynolds turned down Richard Gere’s role in “Pretty Woman.” Why? “Because I’m an idiot,” he told Cohen on “Watch What Happens Live.” Jack Nicholson’s Role in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” Though he “desperately wanted to play it,” for some reason he still turned down this role for which Nicholson went on to win an Oscar. “You can’t out drink Jack. And you can’t out smoke him either,” Reynolds told Cohen. Bruce Willis’ Role in “Die Hard” and Jack Nicholson’s Role in “Terms of Endearment” Though Reynolds told Cohen that he doesn’t remember turning down either role, it still stands as an often-repeated Hollywood rumor. “You can’t go back,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald. “You can’t relive that moment when you should have said, ‘I’ll take it, I’ll do it. '” To add insult to injury, Nicholson went on to win yet another Oscar for “Terms of Endearment.” Still, there’s one near-miss that made it big, but almost didn’t — Reynolds admitted to turning down his role as Jack Horner in “Boogie Nights” seven times before finally coming to his senses and accepting the part, as told to Conan O’Brien in an interview earlier this year. Despite earning him critical acclaim and his first and only Oscar nomination, he never did watch it. “It just wasn’t my kind of film,” he told Conan, adding that the pornographic subject matter made him “very uncomfortable.” Other reported turn-downs include “Rosemary’s Baby,” the Batman TV series, “M*A*S*H,” “Taxi Driver,” and “Rocky,” according to an interview with Reynolds by the Sydney Morning Herald.<doc-sep>Burt Reynolds, the mustached sex symbol of the 1970s and 1980s, who ruled the box office with good-ol’-boy movies like Smokey and the Bandit and earned the critical praise he so badly desired in Starting Over and Boogie Nights, died Thursday in Florida of cardiac arrest, his agent confirmed to Yahoo Entertainment. He was 82. Reynolds’s niece, Nancy Lee Hess, released a statement calling his passing “totally unexpected.” “It is with a broken heart that I said goodbye to my uncle today. My uncle was not just a movie icon; he was a generous, passionate and sensitive man, who was dedicated to his family, friends, fans and acting students,” she said. “He has had health issues, however, this was totally unexpected. He was tough. Anyone who breaks their tail bone on a river and finishes the movie is tough. And that’s who he was. “So many people have already contacted me, to tell me how they benefitted professionally and personally from my uncles kindness. Hess concluded, “I want to thank all of his amazing fans who have always supported and cheered him on, through all of the hills and valleys of his life and career. My family and I appreciate the outpouring of love for my uncle, and I ask that everyone please respect our family’s privacy at this very difficult time.” As much as Reynolds represented an era, he also stood as a timeless cautionary tale. After a five-year run as Hollywood’s No. 1 male movie star, from 1978 to 1982, Reynolds fell into a funk of flops and personal problems, including unfounded health rumors and a nasty tabloid divorce from TV star Loni Anderson, from which his career never recovered. Looking back once, Reynolds said he had something no one could take from him: He was “part of film history.” “You die with that,” Reynolds said. “They can say his career went downhill after that; he made bad films.’ It doesn’t matter.” (Photo: Getty Images) Born Feb. 11, 1936, in Michigan, Reynolds was a Florida State University football player who broke into Hollywood in his early 20s. The early going was rough. He was fired from a studio on either the same day or in the same year, he would alternately recount, as Clint Eastwood: Eastwood was told his Adam’s apple was too big; Reynolds was told he couldn’t act. Story continues His first steady gig, on the TV Western Riverboat, ended when he quit because, he said, “I wasn’t getting along with the star … and I had a stupid part.” Although he became a regular on the long-running hit show Gunsmoke, Reynolds would chase breakout fame into his mid-30s. The actor credited guest-hosting stints for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show with leading him to two career-changing job offers: a role in Deliverance and a chance to pose for Cosmopolitan magazine. Published in April 1972, the Cosmo centerfold spread placed a naked but strategically covered Reynolds on a bear rug and put the actor on the map as a sex symbol. “I can’t believe the chicks are turned on by it,” Reynolds told the Associated Press at the time. A few months after the magazine hit the stands, Reynolds starred alongside Jon Voight, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox in the Deliverance. The 1972 canoe-trip-from-hell drama was a popular and critical hit, scoring three Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Around the time Reynolds’s star was ascending, his upper lip was evolving. Clean-shaven during the 1960s, Reynolds began sporting a mustache, off and on, in the early 1970s. (It’s off in Deliverance; it’s on in Cosmo.) By the late 1970s, the mustache was a fixture as much as Reynolds was atop the box-office standings. Hits from the decade included the pro-football comedy Semi-Tough, the prison-football football comedy The Longest Yard, the stuntman adventure Hooper, and the first Smokey and the Bandit crash-’em up, which co-starred Reynolds’s then girlfriend (and the woman he later called the love of his life), Sally Field. For a time, Field was part of a Reynolds movie posse that included Dom DeLuise, Jim Nabors, Jerry Reed, director Hal Needham, and stock cars. Sally Field and Burt Reynolds in a photo dated Nov. 5, 1977. (Photo: Ron Galella/WireImage) Reynolds went clean-shaven for the 1979 comedy-drama Starting Over. For the first time, Reynolds received serious Oscar buzz; he did not, however, receive a nomination. When Reynolds didn’t accompany Field to the 1980 ceremony, where Field would win Best Actress for Norma Rae, his absence was chalked up to jealousy. Reynolds and Fields subsequently broke up, although the duo was seen onscreen together one last time in the 1980 hit sequel Smokey and the Bandit II. After the hits The Cannonball Run and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Reynolds’s box-office luck ran out in 1983 when he released back-to-back-to-back bombs: Stroker Ace, Smokey and the Bandit III, and The Man Who Loved Women. “It turned bad with Stroker Ace,” he would say about one his misfires that year. “We went to the well too many times with the race cars and the cast.” The same year, 1983, Jack Nicholson revitalized his own then-sagging career in Terms of Endearment, playing an Oscar-winning role that Reynolds turned down; Reynolds chose to make Cannonball Run II, yet another commercial and critical flop, instead. In the mid-1980s, in the wake of the death of movie idol Rock Hudson, and sparked by weight loss Reynolds attributed to jaw problems, the actor was dogged by false rumors that he’d fallen ill with AIDS. Burt Reynolds at the Wizard World Chicago Comic-Con in August 2015. (Photo: Barry Brecheisen/Invision/AP) Things looked up for Reynolds in the 1990s, when he won an Emmy for the sitcom Evening Shade. But the 1993 meltdown of his marriage to second-wife Anderson was a publicity nightmare, with Reynolds accusing Anderson of cheating on him, and requesting that she submit to a truth-serum test. In 1994, Evening Shade was canceled. Reynolds was in need of another comeback when writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson cast him as patriarchal porn director Jack Horner in 1997’s Boogie Nights. Reynolds won raves, along with the New York and Los Angeles critics’ awards and the Golden Globe. His path to the Oscar seemed certain. But at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Academy Awards, Good Will Hunting‘s Robin Williams took the Best Supporting Actor trophies. Conventional wisdom said Reynolds lost support either for his history of taking shots at other actors or for trashing his own comeback vehicle. (As Mark Walberg explained to Yahoo in the clip below, Reynolds hated Boogie Nights and didn’t understand why critics loved it so much. Reynolds reportedly fired his agent after watching the movie.) Afterward Reynolds did multiple TV guest shots, starred as Boss Hogg in the big-screen version of The Dukes of Hazzard, and had a role in the Adam Sandler remake of The Longest Yard. While doing publicity for the latter film, Reynolds created a stir when he slapped a TV producer who’d admitted to not having seen the original 1974 film; Reynolds’s camp insisted the actor was joking. Reynolds was married and divorced twice, first to actress Judy Carne, then to Anderson, with whom he adopted his only child, a son, Quinton, named after his character on Gunsmoke. In addition to Field, whom he would later describe as the love of his life, he was romantically linked to entertainer Dinah Shore. Singer Dinah Shore and Burt Reynolds appear together in Los Angeles in 1971. (Photo: AP Photo/Harold Filan) In recent years, Reynolds endured a series of health and apparent financial troubles. He had heart surgery in 2010, and then in 2014, he auctioned off memorabilia, including a Smokey and the Bandit-era Trans Am and his Golden Globe for Boogie Nights. Reynolds, who also put his Florida mansion on the block, flatly insisted he was “not broke.” Reynolds explained his downsizing to Yahoo as an act of humility: “Quite frankly, I am sick of so many pictures of myself in my own home.” In May 2015, a frail-looking Reynolds, cane in hand, made a rare public appearance at a pop-culture convention in Philadelphia.<doc-sep>(CNN) — Perhaps best known for his broad roles, romances and stint as a magazine pin-up, Burt Reynolds’ career was a mass of contradictions. A better actor than he was often given credit for being, his filmography saw him careen from popular but easily dismissed action comedies – in which he often seemed to be playing a version of the easygoing charmer he appeared to be in real life – to more sophisticated and demanding fare, eventually achieving an advanced level of cool in Hollywood circles, albeit somewhat belatedly. He was a top box office draw in the late-’70s and early ‘80s and had several movies in the works at the time of his death. In March, when Reynolds was promoting “The Last Movie Star,” a movie about an aging star whose fame is fading, The New York Times asked him why he still worked. His reply: “I don’t know why I think this, but maybe I’ve got my best work ahead.” Here are five essential Burt Reynolds films that show off his past best work: ’Deliverance’ Warner Bros Burt Reynolds and Bill McKinney in "Deliverance." Reynolds plays a rugged survivalist in director John Boorman’s brooding 1972 movie about a buddy canoe trip on the fictional Cahulawassee River that goes terribly wrong. Reynolds’ macho, bow-wielding character winds up incapacitated, forcing his friends to find the requisite courage and grit to escape a group of backwoods sadists and get out of the woods alive. Reynolds shows off his acting muscles as well as his iron biceps. ’The Longest Yard’ Paramount Pictures Burt Reynolds in "The Longest Yard." The former high school and college athlete plays a washed-up football star in this 1974 film, which pits prisoners in a football game against their guards. Reynolds’ character is smooth-talking and fun-loving, just trying to serve his time and get out of prison. But he’s pulled into finding some integrity by helping his fellow inmates score a victory against their abusive captors. The film was remade in 2005 starring Adam Sandler, with Reynolds in a supporting role. ’Smokey and the Bandit’ Bettmann Archive/Getty Images Burt Reynolds and Sally Field in "Smokey and the Bandit." Paired with Sally Field, who became his real-life girlfriend, Reynolds is Bandit, a good-ol’-boy bootlegger looking for laughs in his black Trans Am while he helps drive beer where it isn’t supposed to go. His cheeky character provokes a local sheriff (Jackie Gleason) into one long and hilarious chase scene in the lighthearted 1977 action flick, which spawned several sequels. Reynolds often seemed most comfortable in settings that played off his good-ol’-boy image. His mustache was the envy of young men everywhere. ’The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’ Universal Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." In this 1982 musical comedy, based on a hit musical, Reynolds plays the local sheriff, Ed Earl Dodd, who’s a frequent customer at a well-known bordello. Dolly Parton is the proverbial madam with a heart of gold. The two were major sex symbols at the time and casting them made the film a hit. ’Boogie Nights’ New Line Cinema/Everett Collection Mark Wahlberg and Burt Reynolds in "Boogie Nights." Reynolds, then in his sixties, enjoyed an unexpected career resurgence playing a porn producer who makes a star out of Mark Wahlberg’s character, Dirk Diggler, in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 movie about the ‘70s porn scene in Southern California. Reynolds earned an Oscar nomination and reminded the world what a good actor he was. Rest in peace to a legend and a friend. #BurtReynolds pic.twitter.com/HnmCCTv1d1 — Mark Wahlberg (@markwahlberg) September 6, 2018 CNN’s Darran Simon and Michelle Rice contributed to this report.<doc-sep>
(CNN) — Burt Reynolds, the mustachioed megastar who first strutted on screen more than half a century ago, died Thursday, according to his agent, Todd Eisner. He was 82. The Michigan native, whose easy-going charms and handsome looks drew prominent roles in films such as “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Boogie Nights,” suffered a cardiac arrest, Eisner said. A call for an ambulance came from his estate in Martin County, Florida, 911 records show. An iconic Hollywood sex symbol in front of the camera, Reynolds also tried his directorial hand behind it, and later earned a reputation for philanthropy after founding the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film & Theatre in his home state of Florida. His roles over the years ranged and pivoted from Southern heartthrob to tough guy to comedy, notably in his role as Rep. David Dilbeck in the 1996 film “Striptease,” which flopped at the box office but earned him widespread praise for his comedic prowess. But it was John Boorman’s 1972 thriller “Deliverance,” which cast Reynolds as outdoorsman Lewis Medlock, that is widely credited for launching his early career. Reynolds called it “by far” his best film. “I thought maybe this film is more important in a lot of ways than we’ve given it credit for,” he said in an interview years later. The movie’s infamous rape scene may have helped the public – especially men – better understand the horrors of sexual attacks, Reynolds said. “It was the only time I saw men get up, sick, and walk out of a theater,” he added. “I’ve seen women do that (before),” but not men. Born in Lansing, Michigan, Reynolds and his family moved to South Florida when he was 5, according to his autobiography. At Palm Beach High School, he first made a name for himself as a football star and earned an athletic scholarship to Florida State University. But when injuries derailed a promising athletic career, Reynolds turned to acting. He then scored small parts in the late 1950s before landing a role in the New York City Center revival of “Mister Roberts” in 1957, as well as a recurring spot in the TV series “Gunsmoke.” By 1974, Reynolds had hit it big and starred as an ex-football player who landed in prison in the film “The Longest Yard.” Two years earlier, he broke taboo and posed nude in Cosmopolitan magazine, which helped cement his growing status as a sex symbol. He later said he regretted that centerfold image, which showed Reynolds spread out across a bearskin rug, and said it distracted attention from his “Deliverance” co-stars and likely cost them an Academy Award. Reynolds’ notoriety soared through the late 1970s and 1980s, during which time he spearheaded the “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Cannonball Run” movie franchises. He also earned People’s Choice Awards in 1979, 1982 and 1983 as all-around male entertainer of the year. But he also turned down some of the biggest roles in Hollywood history, including James Bond to Han Solo in George Lucas’$2 1977 blockbuster “Star Wars.” Reynolds also reportedly was among Paramount Pictures’ top choices to play Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 epic “The Godfather.” Again, the star expressed regrets. “I took the part that was the most fun. … I didn’t take the part that would be the most challenging,” Reynolds said in an interview with CNN. His love life also drew headlines after a high-profile divorce to actress Loni Anderson preceded Reynolds’ bankruptcy filing in 1996. Anderson and Reynolds shared a son, Quinton. “Quinton and I are extremely touched by the tremendous outpouring of love and support from friends and family throughout the world,” Anderson wrote in a statement on Thursday. “Burt was a wonderful director and actor. He was a big part of my life for 12 years and Quinton’s life for 30 years. We will miss him and his great laugh.” In 1998, Reynolds scored his sole Oscar nomination, for best supporting actor, after his portrayal of a porn film producer in the film “Boogie Nights,” despite his dislike of the film and its apparent glorification of the porn industry. Years later, with a mustache gone gray, he suffered from health issues that led to open heart surgery. Reynolds also checked into a drug rehab clinic in 2009. The purpose was “to regain control of his life” after becoming addicted to painkillers prescribed following back surgery, his manager said.