He was one of the greatest actors in Hollywood back in the 1970s and 1980s, but apparently, Burt Reynolds also had another talent – being able to predict future marriages?
MeTV reported that Happy Days star Ted McGinley found the love of his life at Burt Reynolds’ dinner theater. According to McGinley, the actor had just turned 30 when he held a role at Reynold’s Jupiter, Florida theater when he met his wife, Gigi Rice.
McGinley recalled that Burt Reynolds stated at the time that his dinner theater was the place “where tender hearts had a time of it.” The actor also said, “Strange things happen down here at this theater. People fall in love. They get divorced. Weird things.”
McGinley explained it was almost like Burt Reynolds was foretelling his marriage. Rice revealed in a 1995 interview that sparks immediately flew when she saw McGinley at the theater. “He walked into the room, and I said, ‘That’s the man I want to marry.’”
McGinley went on to add that Burt Reynolds’ theater was considered their favorite restaurant. Unfortunately, the restaurant closed in 1997 after Reynolds reportedly declared bankruptcy.
Burt Reynolds Opened Up About the Acting Roles He Selected Throughout the Years
During an interview with Hemmings, Burt Reynolds discussed the characters he picked. This includes roles that had fast cars. “Growing up the son of a police chief, the idea of a fast car was not a romantic one. When a cop drives fast it might turn out pretty bad. Plus we couldn’t afford one. Our family car was a secondhand Buick.”
Burt Reynolds also stated that he was never big on fast cars personally. “I used some of my Navajo Joe paycheck to get my first brand-new car. A European Mercedes 230 SL that I had imported. Later, I had a Rolls. I’ve had Caddies over the years. And drive one now. But my all-time favorite was the 1955-’57 T-Bird.”
While also discussing how making Smokey and the Bandit II differed from the original, Burt Reynolds revealed that nobody expected anything from the first. “One Star Wars was bigger that year. Plus I was ‘falling in like,’ with Sally [Fields]. Part II was just as much fun, and we knew we had something. But the studio wasn’t convinced.”
When asked which Smokey and the Bandit movie he preferred, Burt Reynolds said the first one due to his personal life. “Sally. In the first one we were getting to know one another and ‘falling in like.’”
Burt Reynolds then stated that Part II was a rough patch. “If you remember that scene when she leaves the bar and we go walking and she is berating me? That was all real, we had just had a big argument and I told her to get it all out. She did, and it was therapeutic. We made up.”
