Burt Reynolds names the greatest actor of all time: “The best I’ve ever seen”
When most actors are asked to name the greatest actor of all time, they usually give one of two answers: Marlon Brando or Meryl Streep. However, when Burt Reynolds was asked that question, he had a different answer, spotlighting a star he idolised as a young actor trying to make it in Hollywood.
In fact, this matinee idol bestowed a piece of advice upon Reynolds that he modelled his entire career after, and anytime the subject came up in interviews, the Smokey and the Bandit icon would wax lyrical about how this old school star was the best he’d ever seen.
In 2017, 82-year-old Reynolds took on the lead role in The Last Movie Star, portraying Vic Edwards, an ageing film icon who is invited to accept a lifetime achievement award at a small, modest film festival in Nashville. While it wasn’t Reynolds’ final film—he had a handful of smaller projects released posthumously—it was his last major leading role to garner significant acclaim. The film’s poignant subject matter, focusing on themes of reflection, legacy, and ageing, served as a touching swansong for the Hollywood legend, who passed away on September 6th, 2018.
While doing publicity for this elegiac tribute to the concept of movie stardom, Reynolds was asked by the Palm Springs Desert Sun if he had a favourite actor from the old days. In response, Reynolds went one better by saying, “Well, I loved Spencer Tracy. I think he was the best film actor I’ve ever seen”.
Tracy was, of course, one of the leading lights of Hollywood’s golden age. He was the first actor to win two consecutive Academy Awards – in 1937 and 1938 for Captains Courageous and Boys Town – and he was known for his beloved double act with Clark Gable in San Francisco, Test Pilot, and Boom Town.
Reynolds encountered his idol in 1959 when he was a young hopeful on the set of Riverboat. The show was shot on the same studio lot as Inherit the Wind, a 1960 drama for which Tracy picked up yet another Oscar nomination. To Reynolds’ delight, his dressing room wound up being right across from Tracy’s, which was actually four rooms converted into one super dressing room.
“When he would walk out, I would walk behind him,” Reynolds revealed. “One day, he turned around and said, ‘Come on.’ And I walked with him.”
Tracy took an interest in the young star and asked, “Are you an actor?” In response, Reynolds immediately quipped, “The jury’s still out about that,” and Tracy must have found it funny because he shot back, “Well, just don’t let anybody catch you at it.”
To Reynolds, though, that was no off-the-cuff gag – it was the best piece of acting advice he’d ever heard and the Rosetta stone to understanding what he loved so much about Tracy’s work. Reynolds realised that Tracy never seemed to be acting at all, instead behaving on-screen like “somebody just snuck a camera in.” Reynolds subsequently chased this naturalism for his entire career, adopting the motto, “Don’t act, just behave,” he told A24 Films. “You want to look like you’re on Candid Camera, and that’s the best acting.”
Overall, though, he was convinced Tracy was the best actor in the world at this brand of performing, and it was because “I have never been able to catch him acting”.
