“I went into a coma for eight or nine hours”: the Clint Eastwood movie that almost killed Burt Reynolds
Playing a tough guy onscreen turned Burt Reynolds into one of the biggest stars in Hollywood when he first broke through in the 1970s, but at least he wasn’t foolish enough to try and disregard the pain he was feeling in the aftermath of an on-set accident with potentially fatal ramifications.
His signature persona was a point of personal and professional pride for Reynolds, who viewed himself as one of the few genuine tough guys in the industry. He openly blasted James Caan as a “poser” who couldn’t brawl his way out of a wet paper bag, whereas he saw himself as the genuine article.
Another performer Reynolds was confident could kick just as much ass on the streets as they could on the silver screen was Clint Eastwood, with the two friends finally making a movie together when they partnered up to play the two lead roles in the 1984 crime caper, City Heat.
Reynolds played a private investigator mourning the loss of his partner, who ends up reaching out to Eastwood’s cop and former friend for assistance to bring down the criminals responsible. This being a buddy picture, they naturally hate each other, before the tensions gradually thaw as they begin getting on the same page.
During the shooting of what was supposed to be a straightforward fight scene, a stuntman accidentally smashed Reynolds over the head with a metal chair, fracturing his jaw. He gamely finished the production, but once cameras had stopped rolling on City Heat, the real problems began.
Reynolds described the pain as “worse than a migraine” and akin to “having an army of people inside your head trying to get out through your ears, eyes, your nose.” He sought medical help and even had his bottom teeth removed and realigned to alleviate the continued pressure on his jaw. As a result of the discomfort, he turned to painkillers, which quickly snowballed into a full-blown addiction.
Reflecting on the after-effects of his City Heat injury and reliance on pills to TV Guide, Reynolds revealed that he was taking “up to 50 a day” but refused to check himself into rehab because “it was very important for me not to be portrayed as a drug addict” in the media, which could have had a detrimental effect on his career.
Things got so bad that the actor admitted he “went into a come for about eight or nine hours”, and the doctors had even brought in his then-wife, Loni Anderson, to say her final farewells. Of course, Reynolds eventually made a full recovery and kicked his painkiller addiction altogether several years after the City Heat incident, but it was clearly touch-and-go for a while.
It was nothing more than an accident, but the domino effect that began with a stuntman unwittingly using the wrong kind of chair culminated in Reynolds being so addicted to painkillers that he was left lying at death’s door.
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