How a cancelled TV show saved Burt Reynolds’ career: “I woulda been rich but miserable”
Having spent the first decade of his career almost exclusively making terrible movies, Burt Reynolds was in desperate need of something with substance. That’s not a generalisation either: those were his words.
The actor knew that he couldn’t keep starring in crap films forever if he wanted to realise his dream of becoming a star, but he found it hard to be taken seriously when his filmography consisted of almost nothing but bad pictures and cheap B-flicks that wouldn’t convince an esteemed auteur to hire him.
There was always TV, with Reynolds amassing an extensive array of small-screen credits that kept him occupied between his awful feature-length work. It wasn’t where he wanted to be, and it definitely wasn’t where he saw himself heading when he first started out, and it transpired that being kicked off the airwaves was the best thing that could have happened.
Premiering in September 1970, Dan August was Reynolds’ first leading role in a TV show since Hawk had been cancelled after a single 17-episode run four years previously. They were both pretty similar in that he played the titular detective in each of them and spent his time solving crimes, and their fates became even more intertwined when Dan August joined Hawk as a one-and-done series.
After airing its 26th and final episode in April 1971, Reynolds was out of work again when his second headlining procedural was also axed after a season. He hadn’t appeared in a movie that year, so his prospects weren’t looking too rosy as he embarked on yet another search for success.
There’s a reason why so many actors put their greatest periods down to a combination of luck and coincidence, though, and Reynolds was one of the many beneficiaries. Less than a month after Dan August was confirmed to have reached the television chopping block, Deliverance began filming.
He only ended up with the role of Lewis Medlock because his arch-nemesis, Marlon Brando, had turned it down, and John Boorman’s Academy Award-nominated classic became the making of Reynolds. He was the standout performer among the cast, and he was the one who weaponised its momentum the best, becoming the biggest star in the business within a matter of years.
Would Reynolds’ position as the dominant box office force of the late 1970s and early 1980s have been possible had Dan August been renewed? According to the man himself, not a chance. Quentin Tarantino recalled asking him that very question in his book, Cinema Speculation, and his answer couldn’t have been more unequivocal.
“No way,” Reynolds said of whether he would have been able to shoot both another season of Dan August and Deliverance. “I woulda been rich but miserable.” Sure, he was pissed that he’d lost a starring role on TV, but there was a massive upside. Thanks to the gap in his schedule, Deliverance was there for the taking, and he never looked back.
