Posted on 11/15/2015 10:11:01 AM PST by EveningStar
... Reynolds' new book, "But Enough About Me" (Putnam), is an unconventional memoir. Rather than a complete and chronological account of his life, Reynolds, the top box-office attraction for five straight years in the 1970s, worked with co-author Jon Winokur to compile chapters about people in his life, telling his own story through the often-wild tales of those around him ...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
ping
Donald Trump doesn’t have Burt Reynolds’ vote.
In his memoir, Reynolds talks about the short-lived United States Football League, a spring-summer league that kicked off in 1983.
Photo: Reuters
Trump owned the league’s New Jersey Generals, and Reynolds was part-owner of the Tampa Bay Bandits.
Reynolds blames Trump for the league’s failure.
“There are always guys who come out of the woodwork and take everything they can. Donald Trump was one such offender,†he says.
He says Trump alone wanted to compete directly with the NFL in the fall, which the other owners and officials saw as unrealistic.
Trump, Reynolds believes, “was angling for a merger with the NFL so he could wind up with an NFL franchise for a song.â€
“[Trump’s] personal ambition sank the USFL,†he says.
“I pray he never gets the chance to do to the USA what he did to the USFL.â€
He went to FSU, ‘nuff said.
oops, meant to ping you to my last
It was the centerfold for Cosmopolitan that really made him a household name. Up to that point, he had been primarily a character actor, and might have remained one for the rest of his career had he not appeared in that centerfold.
Sharky's Machine is one of my favourite movies.
By the time Trump did that, the USFL was just about out of gas.
Most teams were insolvent, San Antonio players infamously when they received their paychecks would race to the bank, the last players to deposit would usually have it bounce.
Trumps idea was maybe, just maybe the Generals and perhaps a couple other franchises would be brought in to the NFL.
It had only been a few years since the WHA had some teams brought into the NHL when it folded.
USFL had no chance of succeeding in the long-run and everybody knew it....EVERYBODY was in it to eventually be absorbed into the NFL.
I knew you had no guts. Not only that, now you got no fingers.
Rachel Ward - SCHWING!!!! The only reason to watch that movie.
It was also his dynamic performance in Deliverance that put him over the top.
i REALLY expected she would become a bigger star than she did... hot Hot HOT!!!
Yep... Sharkey’s Machine is one of my favorite Burt movies. And YES Rachel Ward was a big reason why. Also loved “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” with her and Steve Martin. Very funny PI spoof using footage from old movies mixed in.
Dar Robinson RIP...
At 220 feet, his stunt from Atlanta’s Hyatt Regency Hotel (doubling for the Westin Peachtree Plaza) in the 1981 Burt Reynolds film Sharky’s Machine still holds up as the highest free-fall stunt ever performed from a building for a commercially-released film.
I have always found it fascinating how their careers went in completely different directions.
Agreed. The NFL was so hot especially back then that the USFL never had a chance.
I always loved Burt Reynolds and his movies. It was great escapism for 2 hours in a dark cold theatre. I’m from Fla.
But maybe Burt could have learned a few things about finances from Donald Trump. During Burt’s heyday I was a mortgage loan underwriter for a big Fla Mortgage company. We did a loan for him to buy a house in WPB for his niece or something and I underwrote the loan. I have seen a lot of tax returns but the amount of money he was making at that time was absolutely beyond belief and his assets were incredible. The dinner theatre was a real cash cow too.
So if Burt had invested wisely he would have been able to afford to buy Loni some $10,000 gowns with no problem. Especially since she stuck by him when he had the jaw injury and everyone thought He had AIDS. She nursed him through his painkiller addiction from the injury and I have read that was not a pleasant experience. She then agreed to adopt a child with him even though she had her own children already. So I think his recollection of his days with Loni may be a little skewed.
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