Hollywood’s highest-paid actor from 1978 to 1982, Burt Reynolds was a true cultural icon. One-part high school football hero and one part theater nerd, a young Burt Reynolds won both a Florida State Drama Award and a football scholarship to Florida State University. When a series of injuries took him off the football field, he turned to acting full-time, moving to New York to pursue his career. He was told that he would never make it in Hollywood because he looked too much like Marlon Brando, but he proved his critics wrong. His breakout role came in 1962 when he was cast on Gunsmoke. But Deliverance was his star turn. His 1972 nude centerfold in Cosmopolitan is still an endearing symbol of masculinity. The prolific star would go on to win two Golden Globes and a Primetime Emmy. Active until he died in 2018, Burt’s final film was The Last Movie Star.
While he was filming Deliverance in North Carolina, Burt fell in love with the tranquil beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. With his then-wife, actress Loni Anderson, Reynolds purchased a home in Highlands, North Carolina. Built by Frank Lloyd Wright protege Jim Fox in 1972, Burt’s former home just sold for $2.9 million.
