The one actor Burt Reynolds hated so much he was convinced they were going to hell: “It’s no secret”
When Burt Reynolds signed up for his first major television role in Riverboat, which ran on NBC from 1959 to 1961, his dream role quickly became a nightmare. In fact, despite signing a seven-year contract with Universal Studios, Reynolds walked off the show after only 20 episodes. Choosing to leave a network television show scuppered his reputation in Hollywood for the next few years, but Reynolds felt he had very good reason for abandoning the role. After all, he hated his co-star so much that he was convinced they would end up in hell.
Riverboat told the story of Captain Grey Holden and the crew of the Enterprise, a vessel that sailed up and down the rivers of Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio in the 1830s. Darren McGavin, who would later arguably become best known for the supernatural series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, played Captain Holden, and Reynolds was cast as his partner and the riverboat’s chief pilot, Ben Frazer.
Reynolds was initially excited to nab the role, as he’d only been in Hollywood for a handful of months when he landed it. MCA, Inc’s head honcho, Lew Wasserman, had brought Reynolds out from New York and told anyone who would listen that the rugged but inexperienced actor was destined for superstardom. He amusingly declared, “I don’t care whether he can act or not. Anyone who has this effect on women deserves a break.”
To Reynolds’ dismay, though, McGavin didn’t seem to share Wasserman’s belief in him. The Smokey and the Bandit star once told TV Guide, “I was a green kid so far as film was concerned. Instead of helping me, McGavin looked on me with contempt. He did everything but destroy me on camera.” Reynolds claimed McGavin had a habit of sandbagging him right before cameras rolled by asking, “You’re not going to play it that way, are you?” even after they’d rehearsed things extensively. Reynolds confessed, “What little confidence I had would go right down the drain.”
In later years, Reynolds would realise that McGavin likely saw him as competition for his position as the show’s leading man. He mused, “It’s no secret that Darren and I didn’t like each other on that show. I guess Darren thought of me as a threat, which is a compliment.” The show’s producer, Gordon Kay, seemed to confirm this when he said, “McGavin assumed he was hired as the star of the show while Reynolds hoped the series would give him an opportunity to ultimately make a name for himself. It was an immediate clashing of egos.”
Indeed, the acrimony was so bad that Reynolds told TV Guide he believed McGavin would be “a very disappointed man on the first Easter after his death.”
In later years, Reynolds’ position would soften somewhat, but only when it came to McGavin’s work on screen. Personally, he still thought the guy was destined for a trip downstairs. He mused, “No matter what happened on a personal basis, I still think Darren McGavin is an interesting actor. And if I’ve learned anything in this business, it’s that an actor had better be interesting.”
In the years following his short stint on Riverboat, Reynolds admitted his career hit the skids. In 1966, he told The New York Times that he couldn’t get arrested in Hollywood and explained, “I didn’t have a very good reputation. You just don’t walk out on a network television series.”
However, by 1962, he was given a second chance at a lead role on network TV when he signed on to play Quint Asper in Gunsmoke. In ’63, he confirmed to the Chicago Tribune that he intended to stay on the show until the bitter end this time. He even said, “I think it’s a terrible mistake for an actor to leave a series in the middle of it.”
Amusingly, though, he didn’t listen to his own advice, once again quitting a series early. The only difference was that this time it took 50 episodes for him to pack it in. It makes you wonder if maybe there was another actor on that set that Reynolds hated as much as McGavin.
