American actor, a virile leading man of films of the ’60s and ’70s. A budding football star, he was signed with the Baltimore Colts until a knee injury and an auto accident took him out of football and into acting in 1955.
He started with stage and TV bit roles while doing menial jobs in New York, slowly building his craft before signing a TV contract with Universal, playing in several TV series. He entered films in the early ’60s and had his first impressive role in “Deliverance,” 1972. He established himself as a sex symbol to the female audience and was popular with the men for his nonchalant toughness. Reynolds’ films include “The Longest Yard,” 1974, “Smokey and the Bandit,” 1977 and “The Man Who Loved Women,” 1983. In 1976, he directed his first of several films, “Gator.”
Reynolds was married in 1962 to Judy Carne for three years. He had romances with Dinah Shore, 1971, and from 1976, Sally Field. In 1981 he began dating Lonnie Anderson, becoming a steady twosome in 1982; they married on 29 April 1988, at 2:15 PM, in Jupiter, Florida and adopted their son Quentin four months later. In January 1994, they had one of Hollywood’s ugliest divorces, complete with bitter accusations and custody and money fights.
In January 1996, Reynolds confirmed that he and Pam Seals, his girlfriend of the past five years, had broken up.
In 1985, painful jaw problems and health woes led to the gossip that Reynolds had AIDS. Getting addicted to the prescription drug Halcyon and a few movie flops added to a tough few years. His financial problems seemed to stem from that time, even though he won an Emmy for Best Actor and a Golden Globe for “Evening Shade” in 1991. In 1994, he published his autobiography, “My Life.” After their bitter breakup, Loni Anderson published her own tell-all memoirs, “My Life in High Heels,” which was unflattering. With his divorce woes, he declared bankruptcy in 1996. Courts awarded a financial reorganization plan for him on 7 October 1998 to help resolve some of his financial issues. Fame came sweeter the second time around with a Golden Globe award for his performance in the movie “Boogie Nights” released in the autumn of 1997.
The actor filed a lawsuit against his ex-girlfriend Pamela Seals on 8 November 2004, claiming that she was trying to extort money by threats to accuse him falsely of mental and physical abuse. The couple began dating in 1993 and split earlier in 2004.
The actor underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery during the last week of February 2010. He had previously been treated for a prescription drug abuse problem. He died on the morning of 6 September 2018 at Jupiter Medical Center in Florida of cardiopulmonary arrest. He was 82.
Link to Wikipedia biography