Hollywood Star Burt Reynolds Dies At 82 – Video

Burt Reynolds, whose good looks and charm made him one of Hollywood’s most popular actors has died at age 82. Linda So reports.

Burt Reynolds, whose good looks and charm made him one of Hollywood’s most popular actors as he starred in films such as “Deliverance,” “The Longest Yard” and “Smokey and the Bandit” in the 1970s and ‘80s, has died at age 82.

Reynolds died on Thursday morning at the Jupiter Medical Center in Florida, his manager, Erik Kritzer, said in an email.

“It is with a broken heart that I said goodbye to my uncle today,” Reynolds’ niece Nancy Lee Hess said in a statement sent to Reuters by Kritzer.

“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 added.

At the peak of his career, Reynolds was one of the most bankable actors in the film industry, reeling off a series of box office smashes until a career downturn in the mid-1980s. He rebounded in 1997 with a nomination for a best supporting actor Academy Award for “Boogie Nights,” and won an Emmy for his role in the 1990-1994 TV series “Evening Shade.”

With his trademark mustache, rugged looks and macho aura, Reynolds was a leading male sex symbol of the 1970s. He appeared naked – reclining on a bearskin rug with his arm strategically positioned for the sake of modesty – in a centerfold in the women’s magazine Cosmopolitan in 1972.

Reynolds’ personal life sometimes overshadowed his movies, including marriages that ended in divorce to actresses Loni Anderson and Judy Carne and romances with Sally Field and Dinah Shore, among others. His financial woes and his struggles with prescription pain medication also generated attention.