In honor of the holiday, I brought an article on facts about Operation Petticoat from FACTS.NET.

The movie starred two Hollywood legends.

The dynamic duo of Cary Grant and Tony Curtis took the lead roles in Operation Petticoat, bringing their incredible talent and charisma to the screen.

The film was a box office success.

Operation Petticoat proved to be a hit at the box office, grossing over $9 million in the United States alone.

It was inspired by real-life events.

The movie was loosely based on the true story of the USS Sea Poacher, a submarine that was painted pink in order to camouflage it during the war.

The pink submarine became an iconic symbol.

The striking image of the pink submarine from the film has become one of the most recognizable movie icons of all time.

The movie features a stellar supporting cast.

In addition to Grant and Curtis, Operation Petticoat also features memorable performances from Joan O’Brien, Dina Merrill, and Arthur O’Connell, among others.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award.

Operation Petticoat received an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Original Screenplay, recognizing the clever and witty script.

The movie was a blend of comedy and drama.

While Operation Petticoat is primarily known as a comedy, it also touches on serious themes such as war and resilience.

Cary Grant had reservations about his role.

Initially, Cary Grant was hesitant to take on a comedic role, but he ultimately embraced the character and delivered a memorable performance.

Tony Curtis showcased his comedic abilities.

Operation Petticoat allowed Tony Curtis to showcase his talent for comedy, establishing him as a versatile actor.

The film features incredible wardrobe creativity.

The costume designers for Operation Petticoat had to create uniforms for a crew on a pink submarine, resulting in imaginative and eye-catching outfits.

Operation Petticoat was a critical success.

Aside from its commercial success, the film was also well-received by critics, praising its witty dialogue and entertaining performances.

It was one of Blake Edwards’ earliest successes.

Blake Edwards, known for directing iconic films like Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Pink Panther, achieved early success with Operation Petticoat.

The script went through several rewrites.

The screenplay for Operation Petticoat underwent multiple revisions before reaching its final form, ensuring the perfect balance of humor and heart.

The film showcases the camaraderie of the crew.

Operation Petticoat highlights the close-knit bonds and teamwork among the submarine crew, emphasizing the importance of trust and unity.

The pink submarine became a tourist attraction.

Following the release of the movie, fans flocked to see the real-life pink submarine, USS Sea Poacher, in Key West, Florida.

The movie was an influence for later submarine films.

Operation Petticoat’s unique portrayal of life on a submarine had a lasting impact on subsequent submarine-themed movies and TV shows.

It is considered a classic of the comedy genre.

Operation Petticoat has stood the test of time, remaining a beloved classic in the comedy genre and a favorite among movie enthusiasts.

The film boasts memorable comedic moments.

From hilarious mishaps to witty one-liners, Operation Petticoat is filled with comedic moments that will leave audiences chuckling.

The movie was a product of its time.

Operation Petticoat reflects the societal norms and humor of the 1950s, offering a glimpse into the cultural landscape of the era.

The movie’s theme song became popular.

The theme song of Operation Petticoat, titled “Operation Petticoat,” became a hit and is still associated with the film today.

Operation Petticoat was Curtis’ favorite film.

Tony Curtis once mentioned that out of all the movies he appeared in, Operation Petticoat held a special place in his heart.

It continues to captivate new generations.

Decades after its release, Operation Petticoat continues to entertain and engage audiences of all ages, cementing its status as a timeless classic.

The movie’s success inspired a television series.

Operation Petticoat’s popularity led to a television series adaptation that aired from 1977 to 1979, bringing new adventures to the small screen.

The film’s humor transcends language barriers.

Operation Petticoat’s physical comedy and universal humor make it enjoyable for audiences around the world, even in different languages.

The film showcases the ingenuity of the crew.

Amidst the chaos and challenges, the crew of the pink submarine displays resourcefulness and quick thinking, leading to creative solutions.

Operation Petticoat is a feel-good movie.

With its light-hearted tone and uplifting moments, the film offers a positive and enjoyable viewing experience.

The movie’s success contributed to its cultural impact.

Operation Petticoat’s popularity helped solidify its place in pop culture, becoming a film that is often referenced and celebrated.

The film showcases the importance of adaptability.

Operation Petticoat teaches us that in a challenging situation, it’s crucial to be open to change and make the best out of unexpected circumstances.

It offers a unique perspective on war.

While Operation Petticoat primarily focuses on comedy, it also provides a lighthearted glimpse at the realities of war.

The movie’s success led to other collaborations.

The success of Operation Petticoat led to future collaborations between Blake Edwards and Tony Curtis, including The Great Race.

Operation Petticoat showcases the power of teamwork.

The crew’s ability to work together and overcome obstacles highlights the importance of collaboration and unity, even in challenging circumstances.

The film contains memorable lines.

Operation Petticoat is filled with quotable lines that have become popular among fans of the movie.

It remains a favorite among fans of the genre.

For fans of classic comedy, Operation Petticoat is often listed as a must-watch film, brimming with laughter and charm.

The movie’s success influenced future war comedies.

Operation Petticoat set a benchmark for war comedies, inspiring later films to incorporate humor into wartime narratives.

The film’s runtime allows for a delightful viewing experience.

With a runtime of just over two hours, Operation Petticoat offers an enjoyable and entertaining escape into a world of laughter and adventure.

The movie appeals to a wide audience.

From fans of classic cinema to lovers of comedy, Operation Petticoat has something to offer everyone.

The pink submarine became an iconic movie prop.

The pink submarine from Operation Petticoat has been recreated and displayed in various film and military exhibits over the years.

The film’s success helped pave the way for future comedies.

Operation Petticoat’s popularity and positive reception contributed to the ongoing evolution of the comedy genre in Hollywood.

The movie’s legacy lives on.

Operation Petticoat continues to be celebrated and remembered as one of the most enjoyable and beloved comedies from the golden age of Hollywood.

It remains a testament to the power of laughter.

Operation Petticoat reminds us of the healing and uplifting power of laughter, offering an escape from reality and a joyful cinematic experience.

SOURCE: FACTS.NET

Today is George Carlin’s birthday (born May 12, 1937 and died June 22, 2008).  In honor of his birthday, I found an interesting article on Mental Floss about him.

From Mental Floss:

George Carlin did more than make people laugh—he made them think. Over the course of his long and storied career, the legendary comedian released more than 20 albums, recorded more than a dozen HBO comedy specials, and challenged both conventional American thinking and governmental procedure. From being described as a “significant social satirist” in a Supreme Court ruling regarding indecency to serving as the conductor in Shining Time Station, Carlin touched the lives of generations of fans. Here are some facts about the comedian/actor/author in honor of what would have been his 80th birthday.

HE INHERITED HIS LOVE OF LANGUAGE.

George’s father, Patrick, was an advertising manager for the New York newspaper The Sun. He won a nationwide Dale Carnegie public speaking contest in 1935 with his speech “The Power of Mental Demand.” “He had a real line of sh*t, boy,” Carlin said of his father. “He could talk your donkey’s ear off.” Carlin’s grandfather, a New York City police officer, wrote out Shakespeare’s tragedies in longhand for fun.

GROWING UP, HE WANTED TO BE LIKE DANNY KAYE.

“Danny Kaye was my childhood dream when I was 10, 11,” Carlin said of the actor/singer/dancer/physical comedian/musician. “I kind of looked at that and thought, ‘Gee, I can do that … He makes funny faces, he talks in funny accents and he can do very, very intricate vocal pieces.”‘

HE WENT TO THE SAME HIGH SCHOOL AS MARTIN SCORSESE, REGIS PHILBIN, AND DON DELILLO.

Unlike Regis Philbin, Martin Scorsese, and Don DeLillo, Carlin didn’t graduate from Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx—because he was expelled. In an interview with Playboy, Carlin admitted that he was failing subjects and running away from home for days at a time while he attended Hayes. His scholastic career included stealing money from the visiting team’s locker room during a basketball game, and getting caught telling kids on the playground he had heroin. In 1983, Carlin performed at a Hayes school fundraiser in honor of Msgr. Stanislaus P. Jablonski—the very man who threw him out. Despite the fears of some in the alumni association, Carlin kept his act clean, and Jablonski enjoyed the tribute. Jablonski at one point read old detention slips he had issued Carlin. One read, “He thinks he’s a comedian.”

HE WAS COURT-MARTIALED (MORE THAN ONCE) IN THE AIR FORCE.

Carlin worked as a radar technician on B-47s at Louisiana’s Barksdale Air Force Base. He smoked pot he had mailed to him from New York on the base; the others did not recognize the smell. He was court-martialed once after celebrating the Brooklyn Dodgers winning the 1955 World Series by downing cooking wine and telling off his tech sergeant. He was court-martialed again after falling asleep during a simulated combat drill.

HE HAD A LIFELONG INTEREST IN CURSE WORDS.

He wrote down the “most colorful” profanities he heard in his neighborhood and put them in his pocket. When he was 13, his mother found them in the wallet. Carlin claimed he overheard her saying to his uncle that she believed George needed a psychiatrist.

HIS ARREST OVER SAYING THE SEVEN DIRTY WORDS WAS ALMOST A LOT WORSE.

Carlin was arrested in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1972 for obscenity after giving a stand-up performance at Summerfest. What the six cops didn’t realize was that Carlin had cocaine in his pocket moments before they got to him.

During the show, Carlin’s wife came up on stage to bring him a pitcher of water, and to inform him that he should go offstage to the right, because police were waiting on the left. When he finished his performance, he exited, stage right, and handed the drugs off to a band.

HE WAS THE FIRST-EVER HOST OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, BUT DIDN’T REMEMBER THE EXPERIENCE.

He was “loaded on cocaine all week long” leading up to October 11, 1975, when he performed stand-up and introduced the inaugural episode’s musical guests, Billy Preston and Janis Ian. Carlin and the longtime SNL director Dave Wilson had gone to summer camp together as kids. For the Saturday night talent shows, a young George would do monologues. After years of Wilson winning the contests, Carlin finally beat him. (George eventually got kicked out of camp for stealing film from the owner’s camera to take his own photographs.) When Lorne Michaels interviewed Carlin about performing the hosting duties, he said, “Well, I know the director.”

Carlin was also the first-ever host of Fridays (1980-1982), ABC’s attempted version of SNL.

HIS SECOND OF THREE HEART ATTACKS OCCURRED DURING A BASEBALL GAME.

Carlin was taking in a New York Mets/Los Angeles Dodgers contest at Dodger Stadium with his agent in May 1982—Carlin was a Mets fan since the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to L.A.—when he had his second heart attack. After realizing the park’s first aid station was, as daughter Kelly Carlin wrote, “nothing more than a glorified place to get a Band-Aid,” their limo driver booked it to St. John’s Hospital. George didn’t believe it was as serious as a heart attack, but it in fact was an almost full blockage of the right descending artery. The doctors used an experimental anticoagulant, Streptokinase; they had gotten it that week. It did its job of unclotting.

HE LIED TO KIDS WHO RECOGNIZED HIM AS MR. CONDUCTOR.

A perk to Carlin taking the role of Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station in the first place was that he didn’t have to deal with other actors, as it was all green-screened. But he would inadvertently traumatize children, who spotted him at airports—out of uniform and much bigger than depicted on TV. “I’m not on the island of Sodor, I’m not working today,” he would gently tell them. “But I am Mr. Conductor.” This didn’t lessen the kids’ confusion.

THE IRS HELPED HIM BECOME A BETTER COMIC.

About the Internal Revenue Service taking a large percentage of his money after years of owing taxes, Carlin saw the bright side of it all:

“It made me a way better comedian, because I had to stay out on the road, and I couldn’t pursue a movie career—which would have gone nowhere—and I became a really good comic and writer eventually, saving all my files and thoughts and things. I had to be prepared for that, because HBO was coming along, and about every two years—at my choice—I had to have another hour ready. So my having to stay on the road turned me into a g**damn good comedian. So there’s a bright part of everything.”

SOURCE: MENTALFLOSS.COM

Today is Shirley Temple’s birthday (born April 23, 1928 and died February 10, 2014) and in honor of the day, I found this article on interestingfacts.com:

She Began Acting at 3 Years Old

In 1931, at just 3 years old, Temple earned her first acting contract with Educational Pictures. The studio signed her to appear in a series of low-budget shorts titled Baby Burlesks, which Temple later criticized for being “a cynical exploitation of our childish innocence.” While this project may have been problematic, it nonetheless helped jettison Temple into the limelight. She received her first speaking role in 1932’s War Babies, and later earned her first leading role in the 1934 film Little Miss Marker.  By 1940, at just 11 years old, Temple had already appeared in 43 films. However, she found it difficult to book new roles as she continued to grow older, and she appeared in her final films in 1949, thus ending her Hollywood career less than two decades after it began. Temple went on to make several sporadic appearances on various TV shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s, though she stopped performing altogether after that.

She’s the Youngest-Ever Oscar Recipient

The young Shirley Temple experienced a breakout year in 1934, as she appeared in a plethora of films that included such hits as Bright Eyes and Baby Take a Bow. Her impressive rise to fame was undeniable, which is why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to create a new Academy Juvenile Award to honor her at the 1935 Oscars. This honorary trophy was around 7 inches high, about half the size of a standard Oscar statuette. Upon earning this accolade, the then-6-year-old Temple became the youngest-ever Oscar recipient — a record she’s continued to hold for nine decades. (The youngest winner of a competitive Oscar is 10-year-old Tatum O’Neal, who won Best Supporting Actress for her work in the 1973 film Paper Moon.)

She Received 135,000 Presents on Her Ninth Birthday

According to biographer Robert Windeler, Temple had quite the memorable birthday in 1937. That year marked Temple’s ninth birthday, though not if you asked 20th Century Fox, her movie studio, who lied that it was her eighth birthday to keep her young in the eyes of the public. Temple’s immense stardom at the time meant that her birthday attracted the attention of fans around the globe. Those fans collectively sent Temple a whopping 135,000 presents, ranging from a baby kangaroo sent by an Australian fan to a prize calf gifted to her by a group of students in Oregon. This global outpouring of admiration just goes to show how popular Temple was at the peak of her fame.

She Disliked Her Namesake Drink

A Shirley Temple is a popular mocktail made using ginger ale, grenadine, and a maraschino cherry. There’s some debate over the drink’s exact origins, but one popular story is it was originally concocted to satisfy a “whining” Shirley Temple at dinner. During the meal, Temple supposedly lamented the fact that her parents were drinking Old Fashioneds — a cocktail featuring a maraschino cherry — and so the bartender cleverly whipped up a nonalcoholic version to placate the young star. Despite the beverage’s enduring popularity, Temple was never a big fan of the drink. During a 1986 interview with NPR, she commented, “I hate them. Too sweet.” Despite her aversion to the sugary mocktail, however, she fought hard to protect the drink’s name. In 1988, Temple sued several soft drink manufacturers who attempted to trademark and mass-produce “Shirley T” sodas, a bottled version of the mocktail, promoting it as “The Shirley Temple SoftDrink” without the former actress’ permission. She pushed back against the attempt, saying, “All a celebrity has is their name.”

She Served as U.S. Ambassador to Two Different Countries

Long after her acting career came to an end, Shirley Temple Black — as she was known after marrying Charles Black in 1950 — carved out a new career as a political diplomat. Her active involvement in politics began in 1967, when she ran for Congress to represent California’s 11th district, albeit unsuccessfully. Two years later, President Richard Nixon appointed her as the U.S. delegate to the United Nations, and she went on to deliver an impassioned speech to the U.N. General Assembly about environmental issues. During the subsequent administration of Gerald Ford, Black was appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, a role she held from 1974 to 1976. She later became the first woman to serve as chief of protocol at the U.S. State Department, a post she held until Ford left office in 1977. From 1989 to 1992, Black played a pivotal diplomatic role once again, serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (now Czechia and Slovakia) under President George H.W. Bush. During her time in this role, she helped establish diplomatic relations with the newly elected Czech government in the wake of 1989’s Velvet Revolution.

SOURCE: INTERESTINGFACTS.COM   BENNETT KLEINMAN 

Today is Christopher Walken’s birthday (born in 1943) and my favorite Walken speech is The Lion.

Happy Birthday Christopher!!

I found an interesting site called 15FunFacts and this article is about Bruce Willis.  Today is Willis’s birthday (born in 1955) and it breaks my heart to read about his physical/mental decline.

Bruce Willis originally wanted to become a journalist before pursuing acting.

He worked as a security guard and private investigator while struggling to break into Hollywood.

Willis has perfect pitch, allowing him to identify musical notes without reference tones.

He speaks some German fluently, a skill developed during his childhood in West Germany.

In the 1980s, he appeared in commercials for products like Levi’s jeans and Honda motorcycles.

Willis nearly lost the role of John McClane in Die Hard due to his height—he’s just 5’9”.

He once scuba dived with sharks while filming a movie, demonstrating his adventurous spirit.

Bruce Willis founded a production company called Cheyenne Enterprises early in his career.

His first major TV role was as detective David Addison in the series Moonlighting.

Willis collects rare sports cars and has owned several Ferraris and Jaguars.

He co-starred with Matthew Perry in a stage play before achieving Hollywood fame.

Willis famously shaved his head for the Die Hard role, creating his signature look.

He has actively raised money for charities supporting children and veterans.

He sings and released several blues albums, showing a passion for music aside from acting.

Willis performed many of his own stunts in action films, including gripping rooftop scenes.

SOURCE: 15FUNFACTS

Today is Kurt Russel’s birthday (born in 1951) and I found this article about interesting facts about Kurt on Mental Floss.

Kurt Russell originally had his sights set on being a professional baseball player.

On March 17, 1951, Kurt Russell was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to parents Bing and Louise Russell, but grew up in Thousand Oaks, California. He took heavy inspiration from his father, himself an actor and later owner of a minor league baseball team, the Portland Mavericks. In addition to acting in family films for The Walt Disney Company like 1969’s The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and 1975’s The Strongest Man in the World, Russell was also pursuing a career in professional baseball. In 1971, he joined the Bend Rainbows and later played for his father’s Mavericks. When a shoulder injury halted his athletic ambitions in 1973, he began focusing on acting full-time. The news was not broken to him so gently. Remembering the doctor who told him his shoulder would end his baseball career, Russell remembered him asking, “Aren’t you also an actor?” When Russell said he was, the doctor said, “Well, you’re an actor all the time now.”

Kurt Russell passed up a chance to be in Star Wars to do a television Western.

When George Lucas was casting Star Wars in 1975, he saw a number of actors, including Russell, who auditioned for both Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. Russell was interested in the film, but later said that he was also being offered a role on a television Western called The Quest around the same time and asked Lucas if he could make a decision about whether he wanted Russell in the movie—and if so, in which part. “I don’t know which part I prefer you in,” Russell recalled Lucas as saying. “I don’t know if I like you as Han and this guy as Skywalker, or this guy as Han and you as Skywalker. I don’t know.” When Lucas couldn’t give him an answer, Russell opted to do The Quest.

Kurt Russell was nominated for an Emmy for playing Elvis Presley.

Following his string of Disney films, Russell began tackling more mature roles, including the title character in the 1979 television miniseries Elvis directed by Halloween filmmaker John Carpenter. Playing Elvis Presley earned Russell an Emmy Award nomination and also marked the beginning of his working relationship with Carpenter, who cast Russell in 1981’s Escape From New York, 1995’s sequel Escape From L.A., and 1982’s The Thing, among others.

The King has followed Russell around, or vice versa. Russell had a small part in an Elvis film while as a child actor, appearing in 1963’s It Happened at the World’s Fair. In 2001, he appeared as a criminal who was also an Elvis impersonator in 3000 Miles to Graceland. Most notably, he agreed to dub over an actor playing Presley in 1994’s Forrest Gump as a favor to Robert Zemeckis, who directed Russell in 1980’s Used Cars.

Bull Durham was written for Kurt Russell.

If you’ve ever wondered why a former baseball player like Russell never made a baseball movie, he came close. Writer and director Ron Shelton wrote 1988’s Bull Durham, about an aging slugger named Crash Davis, specifically for Russell. The studio, however, insisted that Shelton cast Kevin Costner instead.

Kurt Russell was paid twice his going rate for Stargate because he was considered impossible to dislike.

It’s often been said of Russell that he possesses an inherent likeability. Perhaps audiences won’t like every film he appears in, but they like the actor himself. According to Russell, that was once backed by research. Recalling that the producers of 1994’s science-fiction movie Stargate offered him twice his going rate to secure his services, he cited audience satisfaction as the reason why. “They said, ‘Oh, well, we ran a questionnaire around the world,’” Russell told GQ in 2016. “They wanted to rate actors on their unlikeability. They wanted to find someone who was likeable because the part, as written, was not. And they said, ‘You know the only star out there who has zero unlikeability?’ ‘Kurt Russell.’ Zero unlikeability!” Russell added that the research was done a long time ago and “that number may have changed significantly.”

Kurt Russell may have stealth-directed Tombstone.

In 1993’s Tombstone, Russell plays a world-weary Wyatt Earp attempting to bring order to the lawless town of Tombstone. Directed by George P. Cosmatos, the film has become a classic of the Western genre. According to an interview with Russell in True West magazine in 2006, it was he, not Cosmatos, who did most of the heavy lifting behind the scenes. After screenwriter Kevin Jarre was let go from directing, producers asked Russell if he wanted to direct it. He did, but he didn’t want to put his name on it. Instead, he said, he gave Cosmatos a shot list every night for the following day’s shooting, an arrangement that Cosmatos agreed to and apparently had with Sylvester Stallone on 1985’s Rambo: First Blood Part II. Russell later criticized the True West interview, saying that he preferred not to discuss what went on with Tombstone in a public forum. “I told [George] that if the studio heads talked to me and the producers talked to me about what took place on Tombstone in terms of George’s involvement, in confidence I would tell them the private and real truth,” he told The San Diego Reader in 2016. “Publicly, I have no interest in tainting anything about Tombstone. The credits are what the credits are, and I will leave it at that.”

Kurt Russell once reported a UFO sighting while flying an airplane.

Russell is an aviation buff who has his pilot’s license. While flying his plane with Oliver Hudson (Goldie Hawn’s son, who Russell raised and considers his own son) in 1997, he reported a strange event. “I was flying Oliver to go see his girlfriend, and we were on approach,” Russell told the BBC. “I saw six lights over the airport in absolute uniform in a V shape. Oliver said to me—I was just looking at him, I was coming in, we’re maybe a half-mile out—and Oliver said, ‘Pa, what are those lights?’ Then I kind of came out of my reverie and I said, ‘I don’t know what they are. He said, ‘Are we OK here?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna call in,’ and I reported it.” The lights soon became known as the Phoenix Lights, which were witnessed by several people. Russell didn’t make his sighting public until 2017.

Kurt Russell is not crazy about an Escape From New York remake.

Talks have been ongoing for a remake of Escape From New York, the 1981 film that put Russell on the map as a viable action hero. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in 2017, Russell was asked how he felt about someone else playing Snake Plissken. “I didn’t play Snake Plissken,” Russell said. “I created him!” Asked if he would do a cameo or play a supporting role, he was more succinct. “F**k that! I am Snake Plissken!”

SOURCE: MENTALFLOSS

Today is Luke Combs’ birthday ( born in 1990) and this is one of my favorite Luke Combs’ songs!

I found this article about Burt Reynolds (9 Things You Never Knew About Burt Reynolds) on the remindmagazine.com website.

1 He was almost a Pro Football Player

While growing up in West Palm Beach, Florida, he was extremely committed to football in high school and had plans to go to Miami, but since he was so into the ladies, he went to Florida State because the ratio of girls to boys was higher. After being offered a contract to play for the Baltimore Colts, his dreams of going pro were dashed when he succumbed to a knee injury. He at least starred in a few movies about his favorite sport.

2 He started out in Spaghetti Westerns

In the early 1960s, both Burt and Clint Eastwood were under contract at Universal, but they couldn’t get the movie roles they desired. So, they both went to Italy to do movies and got their start in Spaghetti Westerns. Eastwood struck gold with The Good, The Bad & the Ugly; meanwhile, Burt made what is considered one of the worst movies of the genre, Navajo Joe in 1966.

3 Late Night talk shows loved him

Burt soon became a fixture on late-night talk shows due to his funny and charming personality. It was one appearance on the Johnny Carson Show that Deliverance director John Boorman spotted him and wanted to cast him immediately for the film. Burt felt it was truly the first good movie he made, as he would often make fun of himself and his roles in the talk show circuit.

4 A famous photo shoot made him a sex symbol

The infamous Cosmopolitan photo shoot stemmed from once hosting the Johnny Carson Show and Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown was one of the guests. Making the point that Hugh Hefner had female centerfolds for years, she felt it was time for the ladies to have one and asked Burt to do the photo shoot. While he was a little concerned about how it would affect his career and being taken as a serious actor, he took the gamble anyway and it shot him to sex symbol status. However, Hollywood was not happy about it and the photo shoot is thought to have ruined his chances of getting an Oscar nomination for Deliverance.

5 He claimed bankruptcy several times

Living a very extravagant lifestyle with a private jet, helicopters, the Tampa Bay Bandits football team, a house in Hawaii, several houses in Florida, the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater, and donations of money left and right, he spent every dime he made as he made it. It wasn’t until a few bad investment opportunities that he had to claim bankruptcy and sign his residual checks over for several years to pay off the bankruptcy. The crown jewel of his money though went to the Jupiter Ranch, a 144-acre ranch that he bought in Jupiter, Florida. He once held an opening for the sprawling estate in 1974. He invited the press and locals and 10,000 people showed up! Sadly, he once again had to claim bankruptcy in the ’90s and had to sell it.

6 Smokey and the Bandit tanked at first

Hal Needham was the stunt guy in Hollywood and, wanting to direct, he wrote the script for Smokey and the Bandit. Hal and Burt were best friends since he was Burt’s stuntman, although Burt did many of his own stunts. Hal got him to sign on for the film. While the film tanked at both NYC and LA premieres, Burt said they released it wrong. Being known for his Southern charm, he said it had to be released in the South, and so it was. It went on to be the 2nd biggest movie in 1977, behind a little movie called Star Wars.

7 A stunt gone wrong left him badly injured

While filming City Heat with Clint Eastwood, he got injured doing one of the stunts, which led to a hairline fracture in his jaw that turned into TMJ syndrome. With it being incredibly hard for him to eat, he lost a ton of weight, and at the time he was rumored to have AIDS. Due to the tremendous amount of pain he was in, he became a pain pill addict and almost died from trying to quit them cold turkey once. He sadly struggled with this addiction for many years.

8 He had many loves

When Burt and Loni Anderson finally married in 1988, he bought her wedding ring in every gem possible so she could never say it didn’t match her dress. The pair were together since 1982 and shared an adopted son, Quinton, but later went through a very messy divorce after splitting in 1993. It was in 2015 that Burt came out saying that he let the real love of his life, Sally Field, get away.

9 He HATED Boogie Nights

While always hungry for an Academy Award, he didn’t receive his first award until it came in the form of an Emmy with his hit TV show Evening Shade in the early ’90s. When Boogie Nights came along, he was adamant he didn’t want to do it and was often yelling at the director about how much he didn’t want to. It wasn’t until Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson said to him, “You act this way in the film, and it will win you an Academy Award” that he agreed. He was nominated for his only Academy Award as porn producer Jack Horner but lost out to Robin Williams. He still despised doing the role.

SOURCE: REMINDMAGAZINE.COM  KAREN RUUD