These days, Burt Reynolds is remembered as a Hollywood star, having appeared in successful movies ranging from Deliverance to Smokey and the Bandit and Boogie Nights. However, the actor actually began his career in the 1950s, starring in several television shows.
However, Reynolds was quick to vocalise his dissatisfaction with his part in Riverboat, quitting the popular show after appearing in 20 episodes. From there, he appeared in a string of movies and television shows in the hopes of boosting his career, including The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Reynolds continued cutting his teeth in various projects throughout the early 1960s, eventually leading to bigger roles, such as significant parts in shows like Gunsmoke and Hawk. Yet, despite the success, Reynolds wanted to transition to cinema, and he took the advice of a friend, western legend Clint Eastwood, in the hopes of achieving his dreams.
It was the mid-1960s, and Reynolds had yet to break into the mainstream, which he later achieved with 1972’s Deliverance. Eastwood had been raving about Sergio Leone, the Italian director responsible for casting the actor in movies such as A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, which made him a star. Reynolds was keen to work with the filmmaker, who went on to release more critically heralded films such as Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America in the coming years.
Thus, he immediately accepted the part when he heard that an Italian director named Sergio was interested in casting him in an upcoming western. Yet, he soon discovered that this upcoming movie – Navajo Joe – was going to be directed by Sergio Corbucci, not Sergio Leone.
Corbucci and producer Dino De Laurentiis wanted Reynolds to join the cast due to his resemblance to Marlon Brando, who had turned down the offer to star in the project. Reynolds went ahead with the role, disappointed with the fact he was working with a different Sergio, although Corbucci was still incredibly successful in his own right, having just released Django.
The movie was poorly received, with Reynolds blaming the director mix-up. In Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness, it is revealed that Reynolds once described the film as “so awful it was only shown in prisons and airplanes because nobody could leave,” adding: “I killed ten thousand guys, wore a Japanese slingshot and a fright wig.”
Luckily, Reynolds’ burgeoning career was not destroyed by Navajo Joe. He continued on, eventually scoring his breakthrough role in Deliverance, which led him to collaborate with filmmakers like Stanley Donen, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Peter Bogdanovich and countless others.