Rod Serling's TWILIGHT ZONE - Individual Base Card from the series issued by Rittenhouse in 2005
"The Bard" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It was the final episode of The Twilight Zone to be one hour long. A direct satire of the American television industry, the episode concerns an inept screenwriter who, through the use of black magic, employs William Shakespeare as his ghostwriter.
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You've just witnessed opportunity, if not knocking, at least scratching plaintively on a closed door. Mr. Julius Moomer, a would-be writer who, if talent came twenty-five cents a pound, would be worth less than car fare. But, in a moment, Mr. Moomer, through the offices of some black magic, is about to embark on a brand-new career. And although he may never get a writing credit on the Twilight Zone, he's to become an integral character in it. |
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A bumbling screenwriter, Julius K. Moomer, is becoming desperate for a sale after years working on unproduced scripts. When his agent mentions that he is submitting another writer's pitch for a television series about black magic, Julius pleads to be allowed to be given first crack at the series. Knowing nothing about the subject, he attempts some research but turns up only an actual book of black magic. While experimenting with the book he accidentally conjures William Shakespeare, who says he is at the service of the conjurer. Deciding not to waste Shakespeare's talent on a television pilot, Julius directs him to write a film.
The producers decide that Shakespeare's script, "The Tragic Cycle", though archaic to the point of being almost incomprehensible, has potential. His task finished, Shakespeare proposes to leave. Julius argues that if he stops writing now Shakespeare will lose his chance at Hollywood fame and become forgotten. Shakespeare at last says he will attend a rehearsal for the film and stay on if it does justice to his script. At the rehearsal he is so horrified at the revisions by the sponsor that he assaults the leading man and storms out. Julius's next assignment, a TV special on American history, seems doomed to failure until he remembers his book on black magic, and uses it to conjure up Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Pocahontas, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, and Theodore Roosevelt to act as consultants.
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Mr. Julius Moomer, a streetcar conductor with delusions of authorship. And if the tale just told seems a little tall, remember a thing called poetic license, and another thing called the Twilight Zone. |
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Jack Weston as Julius Moomer
John Williams as William Shakespeare
Burt Reynolds as Rocky Rhodes
Henry Lascoe as Gerald Hugo
John McGiver as Mr. Shannon
Howard McNear as Bramhoff
Judy Strangis as Cora
Marge Redmond as Secretary
Doro Merande as Sadie
William Lanteau as Dolan
Clegg Hoyt as Bus driver
John Newton as TV interviewer
John Bose as Daniel Boone (uncredited)
Rudy Bowman as Robert E. Lee (uncredited)
Notes: Weston and McGiver were previously in earlier episodes, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "Sounds and Silences"
The episode was likely written by Rod Serling as a reaction to the advertising executives he dealt with regularly while producing for television. In the book The Twilight Zone Companion Serling is quoted as saying that things were so bad with the overcautious executives that "one could not ford a river if Chevy was the sponsor." The actor portrayed by Burt Reynolds satirizes Marlon Brando's way of method acting.
The episode was also featured in the final episode of The Sopranos, in 2007, "Made in America". Tony Soprano, the protagonist of the series, is seen watching this episode while in hiding from his enemies in a safe house.
Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018) was an American actor, director, and producer. He first rose to prominence when he starred in several different television series such as Gunsmoke (1962–1965), Hawk (1966), and Dan August (1970–1971).
Although Reynolds had leading roles in such films as Navajo Joe (1966), his breakthrough role was as Lewis Medlock in Deliverance (1972). Reynolds played the leading role in a number of subsequent box office hits, such as The Longest Yard (1974), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Semi-Tough (1977), The End (1978), Hooper (1978), Starting Over (1979), Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981), Sharky's Machine (1981), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), and Cannonball Run II (1984).
Reynolds was voted the world's number one box office star for five consecutive years (from 1978 to 1982) in the annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll, a record he shares with Bing Crosby. After a number of box office failures, Reynolds returned to television, starring in the sitcom Evening Shade (1990–1994). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Boogie Nights (1997).
Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. was the son of Harriet Fernette "Fern" (née Miller; 1902–1992) and Burton Milo Reynolds (1906–2002). He had Dutch, English, Scots-Irish, and Scottish ancestry. He also claimed Cherokee and Italian roots.
During his career, he often claimed to have been born in Waycross, Georgia, although he said in 2015 he was actually born in Lansing, Michigan. He was born on February 11, 1936, and in his autobiography stated that Lansing is where his family lived when his father was drafted into the United States Army.
He, his mother, and his sister joined his father at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and lived there for two years. When his father was sent to Europe, the family moved to Lake City, Michigan, where his mother had been raised. In 1946, the family moved to Riviera Beach, Florida. His father eventually became Chief of Police of Riviera Beach, which is adjacent to the north end of West Palm Beach, Florida.
During 10th grade at Palm Beach High School, Reynolds was named First Team All State and All Southern as a fullback, and received multiple scholarship offers.
After graduating from Palm Beach High School, he attended Florida State University on a football scholarship and played halfback. While at Florida State, he roomed with college football broadcaster and analyst Lee Corso, and also became a brother of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
He had hoped to be named to All-American teams and have a career in professional football; however, he injured his knee in the first game of his sophomore season, and later that year lost his spleen and injured his other knee in a bad car accident. These injuries hampered his abilities on the field, and after being beaten in coverage for the game-winning touchdown in a 7-0 loss to North Carolina State on October 12, 1957, he decided to give up football.
Ending his college football career, Reynolds thought of becoming a police officer; however, his father suggested he finish college and become a parole officer. To keep up with his studies, he began taking classes at Palm Beach Junior College (PBJC) in neighboring Lake Park.
In his first term at PBJC, he was in an English class taught by Watson B. Duncan III. Duncan pushed him into trying out for a play he was producing, Outward Bound. He cast him in the lead role based on having heard him read Shakespeare in class, leading to his winning the 1956 Florida State Drama Award for his performance. "I read two words and they gave me a lead," he later said.
In his autobiography, he referred to Duncan as his mentor and the most influential person in his life.
The Florida State Drama Award included a scholarship to the Hyde Park Playhouse, a summer stock theatre, in Hyde Park, New York. Reynolds saw the opportunity as an agreeable alternative to more physically demanding summer jobs, but did not yet see acting as a possible career. While working there, Reynolds met Joanne Woodward, who helped him find an agent.
"I don't think I ever actually saw him perform," said Woodward later. "I knew him as this cute, shy, attractive boy. He had the kind of lovely personality that made you want to do something for him."
He was cast in Tea and Sympathy at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. After his Broadway debut in Look, We've Come Through, he received favorable reviews for his performance and went on tour with the cast, driving the bus as well as appearing on stage.
After the tour, Reynolds returned to New York and enrolled in acting classes, along with Frank Gifford, Carol Lawrence, Red Buttons and Jan Murray.
"I was a working actor for two years before I finally took my first real acting class (with Wynn Handman at the Neighborhood Playhouse)," he said. "It was a lot of technique, truth, moment-to-moment, how to listen, improv."
After a botched improvisation in acting class, Reynolds briefly considered returning to Florida, but soon gained a part in a revival of Mister Roberts, in which Charlton Heston played the starring role.
After the play closed, the director, John Forsythe, arranged a film audition with Joshua Logan for Reynolds. The film was Sayonara (1957). Reynolds was told he could not be in the film because he looked too much like Marlon Brando. Logan advised Reynolds to go to Hollywood, although Reynolds did not feel confident enough to do so. (Another source says Reynolds did a screen test after Lew Wasserman saw the effect he had on secretaries in his office but the test was unsuccessful.)
He worked in a variety of jobs, such as waiting tables, washing dishes, driving a delivery truck and as a bouncer at the Roseland Ballroom. Reynolds wrote that, while working as a dockworker, he was offered $150 to jump through a glass window on a live television show.
Reynolds began acting on television in the late 1950s, guest starring on shows like Flight, M Squad, Schlitz Playhouse, The Lawless Years and Pony Express. He signed a seven-year contract with Universal. "I don't care whether he can act or not," said Wasserman. "Anyone who has this effect on women deserves a break."
Reynolds' first big break came when he was cast alongside Darren McGavin in the lead of the TV series Riverboat (1959–61), playing Ben Frazer. According to a contemporary report Reynolds was considered "a double for Marlon Brando". The show went for two seasons but Reynolds quit after only 20 episodes, claiming he did not get along with McGavin or the executive producer, and that he had "a stupid part".
Reynolds says then he "couldn't get a job. I didn't have a very good reputation. You just don't walk out on a network television series."
Reynolds returned to guest starring on television shows. As he put it, "I played heavies in every series in town" appearing in episodes of Playhouse 90, Johnny Ringo, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Lock Up, The Blue Angels, Michael Shayne, Zane Grey Theater, The Aquanauts and The Brothers Brannagan. "They were depressing years," he later said.
Reynolds made his film debut in the low budget Angel Baby (1961), billed fourth. He followed it with a role in a war film, Armored Command (1961). "It was the one picture that Howard Keel didn't sing on," reminisced Reynolds later. "That was a terrible mistake."
In 1961, he returned to Broadway to appear in Look, We've Come Through under the direction of José Quintero, but it lasted only five performances.
Reynolds continued to guest star on shows such as Naked City, Ripcord, Everglades, Route 66, Perry Mason, and The Twilight Zone ("The Bard"). He later said, "I learned more about my craft in these guest shots than I did standing around and looking virile on Riverboat".
In 1962, Dennis Weaver wanted to leave the cast of Gunsmoke, one of the top rated shows in the country. The producers developed a new character, "halfbreed" blacksmith Quint Asper: Reynolds was cast, beating over 300 other contenders. Reynolds announced he would stay on the show "until it ends. I think it's a terrible mistake for an actor to leave a series in the middle of it". Reynolds left Gunsmoke in 1965. He later said that being in that show was "the happiest period of my life. I hated to leave that show but I felt I had served my apprenticeship and there wasn't room for two leading men."
He was cast in his first lead role in a film, the low budget action film Operation CIA (1965). He guest starred on Flipper, The FBI and 12 O'Clock High.
Reynolds was given the title role in a TV series, Hawk (1966–67), playing Native American detective John Hawk. It ran for 17 episodes before being cancelled.
He played another Native American in the spaghetti western Navajo Joe (1966) shot in Spain. "It wasn't my favorite picture," ...he said later...."I had two expressions - mad and madder."
He guest starred on Gentle Ben, and made a pilot for a TV series, Lassiter, where he would have played a magazine journalist. It was not picked up.
Reynolds then made a series of films in quick succession. Shark! (1968), shot in Mexico, was directed by Sam Fuller, who tried unsuccessfully to remove his name from it, after which its release was held up for a number of years. Fade In which he described as "the best thing I've ever done", was not released for a number of years, and the director Jud Taylor took his name off. Impasse (1969), was a war movie shot in the Philippines. He played the title role Sam Whiskey (1969), a comic Western written by William W. Norton which Reynolds later claimed was "way ahead of its time. I was playing light comedy and nobody cared."
Reynolds supported Jim Brown and Raquel Welch in another Western, 100 Rifles (1969), later saying "I spent the entire time refereeing fights between Jim Brown and Raquel Welch."
In a 1969 interview he expressed interest in playing roles like the John Garfield part in The Postman Always Rings Twice, but no one sent him those sort of roles. "Instead, the producer hands me a script and says 'I know it's not there now kid but I know we can make it work'."
Reynolds had been offered a lead role in MASH (1970), but turned it down after "they told me the other two leads would be Barbra Streisand's husband and that tall, skinny guy who was in The Dirty Dozen." Tom Skerritt played the role and Reynolds instead went into Skullduggery (1970), shot in Jamaica. Reynolds joked that after making "those wonderful forgettable pictures... I suddenly realized I was as hot as Leo Gorcey."
Reynolds then starred in two TV films, Hunters Are for Killing (1970) and Run, Simon, Run (1970). In Hunters Are for Killing, his character was originally a Native American, but Reynolds requested this element be changed, feeling he had played it too many times already and it was not needed for the character.
Reynolds played the title character in police drama Dan August (1970–71), produced by Quinn Martin. The series was given a full-season order of 26 episodes based on the reputation of Martin and Reynolds but struggled in the ratings against Hawaii 5-0 and was not renewed.
Albert R. Broccoli asked Reynolds to take over the role of James Bond from Sean Connery, but he turned that role down, saying "An American can't play James Bond. It just can't be done."
Following the cancellation of the series, Reynolds did his first stage play in six years, a production of The Tender Trap at Arlington Park Theatre. He was offered other TV pilots but was reluctant to play a detective again.
Around this time he had become well known as an entertaining talk show guest, starting with an appearance on The Merv Griffin Show. He made jokes at his own expense, calling himself America's most "well-known unknown" who only made the kind of movies "they show in airplanes or prisons or anywhere else the people can't get out." He proved enormously popular and was frequently asked back by Griffin and Johnny Carson; he even guest hosted the Tonight Show. He was so popular as a guest he was offered his own talk show but he wanted to keep on as an actor.
He later said his talk show appearances were "the best thing that ever happened to me. They changed everything drastically overnight. I spent ten years looking virile saying 'Put up your hands'. After the Carson, Griffin, Frost, Dinah's show, suddenly I have a personality."
"I realized that people liked me, that I was enough," said Reynolds. "So if I could transfer that character - the irreverent, self-deprecating side of me, my favorite side of me - onto the screen, I could have a big career.
Reynolds had his breakout role in Deliverance, directed by John Boorman, who cast him on the basis of a talk show appearance. "It's the first time I haven't had a script with Paul Newman's and Robert Redford's fingerprints all over it," Reynolds joked. "The producers actually came to me first."
"I've waited 15 years to do a really good movie," he said in 1972. "I made so many bad pictures. I was never able to turn anyone down. The greatest curse in Hollywood is to be a well-known unknown."
Reynolds also gained notoriety around this time when he began a well-publicized relationship with Dinah Shore, who was 20 years his senior, and after he posed naked in the April 1972 issue of Cosmopolitan. Reynolds said he did it for "a kick. I have a strange sense of humor" and because he knew he had Deliverance coming out. He later expressed regret for posing for Cosmopolitan.
Deliverance was a huge commercial and critical success and, along with the talk show appearances, helped establish Reynolds as a movie star. "The night of the Academy Awards, I counted a half-dozen Burt Reynolds jokes," he later said. "I had become a household name, the most talked-about star at the award show."
He was then in Fuzz (1972), reuniting him with Welch, and made a cameo in the Woody Allen film, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex*(*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972). He also returned to the stage, appearing in The Rainmaker at the Arlington.
Reynolds played the title role in Shamus (1973), a modern-day private eye, which drew unenthusiastic reviews, but was a solid box office success. Reynolds described it as "not a bad film, kind of cute."
He was in The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973) co-starring Sarah Miles. The film is best remembered for the scandal during filming where Miles' lover committed suicide; it was a minor hit. He was meant to reunite with Boorman in Zardoz but fell ill and was replaced by Sean Connery.
Another turning moment in Reynolds' career came when he made the light-hearted car chase film written by Norton, White Lightning (1973). Reynolds later called it "the beginning of a whole series of films made in the South, about the South and for the South... you could make back the cost of the negative just in Memphis alone. Anything outside of that was just gravy." Car chase films would be Reynolds' most profitable genre. At the end of 1973 Reynolds was voted into the list of the ten most popular box office stars in the US, at number four. He would stay on that list until 1984.
He made a sports comedy with Robert Aldrich, The Longest Yard (1974) which was popular. Aldrich later said "I think that on occasion he's a much better actor than he's given credit for. Not always: sometimes he acts like a caricature of himself."
Reynolds then appeared in two big budget fiascos: At Long Last Love (1975), a musical for Peter Bogdanovich, and Lucky Lady (1975) with Gene Hackman and Liza Minnelli.
More popular was another light hearted car chase film, W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975), and a tough cop drama with Aldrich, Hustle (1975). He did a cameo for Mel Brooks in Silent Movie (1976).
Reynolds made his directorial debut in 1976 with Gator, the sequel to White Lightning, written by Norton. "I waited 20 years to do it [directing] and I enjoyed it more than anything I've ever done in this business," he said after filming. "And I happen to think it's what I do best."
He was reunited with Bogdanovich for the screwball comedy Nickelodeon (1976), which was a commercial disappointment. Aldrich later commented, "Bogdanovich can get him to do the telephone book! Anybody else has to persuade him to do something. He's fascinated by Bogdanovich. I can't understand it." He turned down the part of Clark Gable in Gable and Lombard.
Reynolds had the biggest hit of his career with a car chase film Smokey and the Bandit (1977), directed by Hal Needham and co-starring Jackie Gleason and Sally Field.
He followed it with a comedy about football players, Semi-Tough (1977), co-starring Jill Clayburgh and Kris Kristofferson and produced by David Merrick. He then directed his second film, The End (1978), a black comedy, playing a role originally written for Woody Allen.
More popular was a car comedy he made with Needham and Field, Hooper (1978), where he played a stuntman.
"My ability as an actor gets a little better every time," he said around this time. "I'm very prolific in the amount of films I make - two-and-a-half or three a year - and when I look at any picture I do now compared to Deliverance, it's miles above what I was doing then. But when you're doing films that are somewhat similar to each other, as I've been doing, people take it for granted."
He turned down the role played by Alan Alda in California Suite (1978) because he felt the part was too small.
He also said "I'd rather direct than act. I'd rather do that than anything. It's the second-best sensation I've ever had." He added that David Merrick had offered to produce two films Reynolds would direct without having to act in them.
Reynolds tried a change of pace with Starting Over (1979), a romantic comedy again co-starring Clayburgh and Candice Bergen; it was co-written and produced by James L. Brooks. He played a jewel thief in Rough Cut (1980) produced by Merrick, who fired and then rehired director Don Siegel during filming.
Reynolds had two huge hits with car films directed by Needham, Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) and The Cannonball Run (1981). He starred in David Steinberg's film Paternity (1981) and directed himself in a tough action film, Sharky's Machine (1981).
Reynolds wanted to try a musical again and so agreed to do The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). It was box-office hit, as was Best Friends (1982) with Goldie Hawn. In 1982, Reynolds was voted the most popular star in the US for the fifth year in a row.
Around this time he reflected:
The only thing I really enjoy is this business, and I think my audience knows that. I've never been able to figure out exactly who that audience is. I know there have been a few pictures even my mother didn't go see, but there's always been an audience for them. I guess it is because they always know that I give it 100 percent, and good or bad, there's going to be quite a lot of me in that picture. That's what they're looking for. I don't have any pretensions about wanting to be Hamlet. I would just like to be the best Burt Reynolds around.
James L. Brooks offered Reynolds the role of astronaut Garrett Breedlove in Terms of Endearment (1983) but he turned it down to do Stroker Ace (1983), another car chase comedy directed by Needham. The Endearment role went to Jack Nicholson, who went on to win an Academy Award. Reynolds said he made this decision because "I felt I owed Hal more than I owed Jim" but Stroker Ace flopped. Reynolds felt this was a turning point in his career from which he never recovered. "That's where I lost them," he says of his fans.
The Man Who Loved Women (1983), directed by Blake Edwards also flopped. In an interview around this time he said:
Getting to the top has turned out to be a hell of a lot more fun than staying there. I've got Tom Selleck crawling up my back. I'm in my late 40s. I realize I have four or five more years where I can play certain kinds of parts and get away with it. That's why I'm leaning more and more toward directing and producing. I don't want to be stumbling around town doing Gabby Hayes parts a few years from now. I'd like to pick and choose and maybe go work for a perfume factory like Mr. Cary Grant, and look wonderful with everybody saying, 'Gee, I wish he hadn't retired.
Cannonball Run II (1984), directed by Needham, brought in some money but only half of the original. City Heat (1984), which teamed Reynolds and Eastwood was mildly popular but was considered a major critical and box office disappointment. He was injured during filming, causing him to lose weight and for rumors to begin that he had AIDS.
Reynolds returned to directing with Stick (1985) from an Elmore Leonard novel but it was both a critical and commercial failure. So too were three other action films he made: Heat (1986), based on a William Goldman novel, Malone (1987), and Rent-a-Cop (1987) with Liza Minnelli. He later said he did Heat and Malone "because there were so many rumors about me [about AIDS]. I had to get out and be seen."
Reynolds attempted a screwball comedy, Switching Channels (1989), but it too was a box office disappointment. Even more poorly received was Physical Evidence (1989), directed by Michael Crichton. Reynolds received excellent reviews for the caper comedy Breaking In (1989), but the commercial reception was poor.
"When I was doing very well," he said at the time, "I wasn't conscious I was doing very well, but I became very conscious when I wasn't doing very well. The atmosphere changed."
Reynolds returned to TV series with B.L. Stryker (1989–90). It ran two seasons, during which time Reynolds played a supporting part in Modern Love (1990).
Reynolds then starred in a sitcom, Evening Shade (1990–94) as Woodward "Wood" Newton. The program was a considerable success and ran for four seasons and 98 episodes. This role earned him an Emmy Award.
During his tenure on Evening Shade, Reynolds was seen in other projects. This started with the a cameo in The Player (1992).
On August 23 1993, the film Cop And A Half premiered and Reynolds was the lead. As early as August 25, the television special Wind in the Wire starring Randy Travis first aired. Reynolds, Chuck Norris, and Lou Diamond Phillips were among the guests. On October 15, CBS first aired the television film The Man from Left Field co-starring Reba McEntire, Reynolds starred and directed.
When Evening Shade ended, Reynolds played the lead in a horror film, The Maddening (1995). However, he gradually moved into being more of a character actor - he had key support roles in Citizen Ruth (1996), an early work from Alexander Payne, and Striptease (1996) with Demi Moore. He had to audition for the latter. The film's producer later said, "To be honest, we were not enthusiastic at first. There was the hair and his reputation, but we were curious." Reynolds got the role and earned some strong reviews.
Reynolds was a supporting actor in Frankenstein and Me (1996), Mad Dog Time (1996), The Cherokee Kid (1996), Meet Wally Sparks (1997) with Rodney Dangerfield, and Bean (1997) with Rowan Atkinson. He had the lead in Raven (1996), a straight-to-DVD action film. Around this time he claimed he was broke, having gone through $13 million.
In 1996, Reynolds' agent said, "Regarding Burt, there's a split between the executives in town who are under 40 and those who are over 40. The younger executives are more open to Burt because they grew up loving Deliverance. But the older executives remember how crazy he was, and they are less receptive."
Reynolds appeared as an adult film director in the hit film Boogie Nights (1997), which was considered a comeback role for him; he received 12 acting awards and 3 nominations for the role, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Reynolds' first and only nomination for the award. Reynolds was offered a role in Boogie Nights writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's subsequent film, Magnolia (1999), but declined, saying he hated working on Boogie Nights and hated Anderson.
He had the lead in Big City Blues (1997) and support roles in Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms (1998) and Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business (1998).
Reynolds returned to directing with Hard Time (1998) an action TV film starring himself. It led to two sequels, which he did not direct, Hard Time: The Premonition (1999) and Hard Time: Hostage Hotel (1999) (directed by Hal Needham).
He starred in the straight to video The Hunter's Moon (1999), Stringer (1999), and Waterproof (2000).
Reynolds played support roles in Pups (1999), Mystery, Alaska (1999) and had the lead in The Crew (2000) alongside Richard Dreyfuss.
Reynolds directed The Last Producer (2000), starring himself, and was second billed in Renny Harlin's Driven (2001), starring Sylvester Stallone.
He was also in Tempted (2001), Hotel (2001) directed by Mike Figgis, and The Hollywood Sign (2001).
He voiced Avery Carrington in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, released in 2002.
Reynolds was top billed in Snapshots (2002) with Julie Christie, Time of the Wolf (2002), and Hard Ground (2003), and supported in Johnson County War (2002) with Tom Berenger, and Miss Lettie and Me (2003) with Mary Tyler Moore.
Reynolds was in a series of supporting roles that referred to earlier performances: Without a Paddle (2004), a riff on his role in Deliverance, The Longest Yard (2005), a remake of his 1974 hit with Adam Sandler playing Reynolds' old role; and The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) as Boss Hogg in a nod to his performances in 1970s car chase films.
Reynolds continued to play lead roles in films such as Cloud 9 (2006), Forget About It (2006), Deal (2008), and A Bunch of Amateurs (2008), and supporting parts like End Game (2006), Grilled (2006), Broken Bridges (2006), In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007), Not Another Not Another Movie (2011), and Reel Love (2011).
Reynolds was top billed in Category 5 (2014) and Elbow Grease (2016) and could be seen in Pocket Listing (2014), and Hollow Creek (2015). He returned to regular role on TV in Hitting the Breaks (2016) but it only ran for ten episodes. He was in Apple of My Eye (2016).
Reynolds appeared posthumously in the 2019 film An Innocent Kiss as well as in the 2020 film Defining Moments, which includes his final performance.
In May 2018, Reynolds had joined the cast for Quentin Tarantino's film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as George Spahn (an eighty year old blind man who rented out his ranch to Charles Manson), but he died before shooting his scenes and was later replaced by Bruce Dern.
Reynolds co-authored the 1997 children's book Barkley Unleashed: A Pirate's Tail, a "whimsical tale [that] illustrates the importance of perseverance, the wonders of friendship and the power of imagination".
In 1973, Reynolds released the country/easy listening album Ask Me What I Am. He also sang in two movie musicals: At Long Last Love (1975) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982).
Despite his lucrative career, in 1996 he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, due in part to an extravagant lifestyle, a divorce from Loni Anderson and failed investments in some Florida restaurant chains. Reynolds emerged from bankruptcy two years later.
Reynolds was married to English actress Judy Carne from 1963 to 1965. He and American singer-actress Dinah Shore were in a relationship in early 1971 until 1976. In the mid-1970s, Reynolds briefly dated singer Tammy Wynette. He had a relationship from 1977 to 1980 (then off-and-on until 1982) with American actress Sally Field, during which time they appeared together in four films. Reynolds was married to American actress Loni Anderson from 1988 to 1994. They adopted a son, Quinton. He and Anderson separated after he fell in love with a cocktail waitress, with whom he later traded lawsuits which were settled out of court.
In the late 1970s, Reynolds opened Burt's Place, a nightclub restaurant in the Omni International Hotel in the Hotel District of Downtown Atlanta, and briefly operated a second version at Lenox Square. He was a lifelong fan of American football, a result of his collegiate career, and was a minority owner of the Tampa Bay Bandits of the USFL from 1982 to 1986. The team's name was inspired by the Smokey and the Bandit trilogy and Skoal Bandit, a primary sponsor for the team as a result of also sponsoring Reynolds' motor racing team.
Reynolds co-owned a NASCAR Winston Cup Series team, Mach 1 Racing, with Hal Needham, which ran the No. 33 "Skoal Bandit" car with driver Harry Gant. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Florida State University in 1981 and later endorsed the construction of a new performing arts facility in Sarasota, Florida.
He also owned a private "dinner theater" in Jupiter, Florida, with a focus on training young performers looking to enter show business. The theater was later renamed to the Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theater and closed in 1997 after Reynolds declared bankruptcy.
In 1984, he opened a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, "Burt & Jacks", which he co-owned with Jack Jackson.
While filming City Heat in 1984, Reynolds was struck in the face with a metal chair on the first day of filming, which resulted in temporomandibular joint dysfunction. He was restricted to a liquid diet and lost thirty pounds from not eating. The painkillers he was prescribed led to addiction, which lasted several years. He underwent back surgery in 2009 and a quintuple coronary artery bypass surgery in February 2010.
On August 16, 2011, Merrill Lynch Credit Corporation filed foreclosure papers, claiming Reynolds owed US$1.2 million on his home in Hobe Sound, Florida. He owned the Burt Reynolds Ranch, where scenes for Smokey and the Bandit were filmed and which once had a petting zoo, until its sale during bankruptcy. In April 2014, the 153-acre (62 ha) rural property was rezoned for residential use and the Palm Beach County school system was empowered to sell it which they did to the residential developer K. Hovnanian Homes. Reynolds also once purchased a mansion on a tract of land in Loganville, Georgia, while married to Loni Anderson.
Reynolds died of a heart attack at the Jupiter Medical Center in Jupiter, Florida, on September 6, 2018, at the age of 82. His ex-wife Loni Anderson issued a statement saying that she and their adopted son Quinton would miss him and "his great laugh". On September 20, 2018, the two held a private memorial service for Reynolds at a funeral home in North Palm Beach, Florida. Those in attendance included Sally Field, FSU coach Bobby Bowden, friend Lee Corso, and quarterback Doug Flutie. Reynolds' body was cremated and his ashes were given to his niece.
On the day of Reynolds' death, Antenna TV, which airs The Tonight Show nightly, aired an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from February 11, 1982, featuring an interview and a This Is Your Life-style skit with Reynolds. The local media in Atlanta and elsewhere in the state noted on their television news programs that evening that he was the first to make major films in Georgia, all of which were successful, which helped make the state one of the top filming locations in the country.
Jack Weston (born Jack Weinstein; August 21, 1924 – May 3, 1996) was an American actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1976 and a Tony Award in 1981.
Weston, a Cleveland, Ohio native, usually played comic roles in films such as Cactus Flower (1969) and Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960). He occasionally took on heavier parts, such as the scheming crook and stalker who, along with Alan Arkin and Richard Crenna, attempts to terrorize and rob a blind Audrey Hepburn in the 1967 film Wait Until Dark.
Weston had countless character roles in major films such as The Cincinnati Kid and The Thomas Crown Affair. On television he made numerous appearances such as murderer Fred Calvert in the 1958 Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Daring Decoy". In 1961, he was a guest star in the TV drama Route 66, playing the manager of a traveling group of young women nightclub dancers, who mistreats his employees. In 1963, he was a guest star in the TV drama The Fugitive.
In 1976, he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his performance in the film The Ritz. In 1981, Weston appeared on Broadway in Woody Allen's comedy The Floating Light Bulb, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Actor. Other stage appearances included Bells are Ringing in 1956 (with Judy Holliday), The Ritz in 1975, Neil Simon's California Suite (1976) and One Night Stand in 1980.
Weston co-starred in Alan Alda's 1981 film The Four Seasons, and then reprised his role to star in a television series spinoff on CBS.
Weston served in the United States Army during World War II. Weston married twice, first to actress Marge Redmond, noted for her role in the ABC sitcom The Flying Nun. They occasionally appeared together, an example being a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone titled "The Bard". Redmond and Weston divorced.[when?] The couple had no children.
His second marriage was to Laurie Gilkes and lasted until his death from lymphoma on May 3, 1996, after a six-year struggle. He was 71 years old.
Jack was the older brother of Anthony Spinelli, whose birth name was Sam Weinstein and whose first stage name was Sam Weston. The Westons were Jewish.
Stage Struck (1958) as Frank
Peter Gunn (1958), "The Kill" (S1E01) as Dave Green
I Want to Live! (1958) as NCO at Party (uncredited)
Imitation of Life (1959) as Tom
Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960) as Joe Positano
All in a Night's Work (1961) as Lasker
The Honeymoon Machine (1961) as Signalman Buford Taylor
It's Only Money (1962) as Leopold
Palm Springs Weekend (1963) as Coach Fred Campbell
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) as George Stickel
The Cincinnati Kid (1965) as Pig
Mirage (1965) as Lester
Wait Until Dark (1967) as Carlino
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) as Erwin Weaver
The April Fools (1969) as Potter Shrader
Cactus Flower (1969) as Harvey Greenfield
A New Leaf (1971) as Andy McPherson
Fuzz (1972) as Det. Meyer Meyer
The Ritz (1976) as Gaetano Proclo
Gator (1976) as Irving Greenfield
Cuba (1979) as Larry Gutman
Can't Stop the Music (1980) as Benny Murray
The Four Seasons (1981) as Danny Zimmer
High Road to China (1983) as Struts
The Longshot (1986) as Elton
Rad (1986) as Duke Best
Dirty Dancing (1987) as Max Kellerman
Ishtar (1987) as Marty Freed
Short Circuit 2 (1988) as Oscar Baldwin
In 1949, Weston appeared as Mr. Storm in episode 5 of Captain Video and His Video Rangers.
In the 1960–1961 television season, Weston appeared as Chick Adams, a reporter, on the CBS sitcom My Sister Eileen.
The next season, 1961–1962, he starred in the short-lived sitcom The Hathaways (ABC), in which he and Peggy Cass adopted a trio of chimpanzees (the Marquis Chimps).
He also made guest appearances on such television series as Peter Gunn, Perry Mason, Rescue 8, The Twilight Zone (episodes "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", and "The Bard"), The Untouchables, Have Gun – Will Travel, Johnny Staccato, Thriller, The Lawless Years (2 episodes), Route 66, Harrigan and Son, Stoney Burke, Breaking Point, The Fugitive, Bewitched, Gunsmoke, Twelve O'Clock High, Laredo, Tales of the Unexpected, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Carol Burnett Show, All in the Family, and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.
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The Twilight Zone is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, suspense, horror, and psychological thriller, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist, and usually with a moral. A popular and critical success, it introduced many Americans to common science fiction and fantasy tropes. The original series, shot entirely in black and white, ran on CBS for five seasons from 1959 to 1964.
The Twilight Zone followed in the tradition of earlier television shows such as Tales of Tomorrow (1951–53) and Science Fiction Theatre (1955–57); radio programs such as The Weird Circle (1943–45), Dimension X (1950–51) and X Minus One (1955–58); and the radio work of one of Serling's inspirations, Norman Corwin. The success of the series led to a feature film (1983), a TV film (1994), a radio series (2002–12), literature including a comic book, novels and a magazine and a theme park attraction and various other spin-offs that spanned five decades, including three revival television series. The first revival (1985–89) ran on CBS and in syndication in the 1980s, while the second revival ran on UPN (2002–2003). In December 2017, CBS All Access officially ordered the third Twilight Zone revival to series, helmed by Jordan Peele. The series premiered on April 1, 2019.
TV Guide ranked the original TV series #5 in their 2013 list of the 60 greatest shows of all time and #4 in their list of the 60 greatest dramas.
As a boy, Rod Serling was a fan of pulp fiction stories. As an adult, he sought topics with themes such as racism, government, war, society, and human nature in general. Serling decided to combine these two interests as a way to broach these subjects on television at a time when such issues were not commonly addressed.
Throughout the 1950s, Serling established himself as one of the most popular names in television. He was as famous for writing televised drama as he was for criticizing the medium's limitations. His most vocal complaints concerned censorship, which was frequently practiced by sponsors and networks. "I was not permitted to have my senators discuss any current or pressing problem," he said of his 1957 Studio One production "The Arena", intended to be an involving look into contemporary politics. "To talk of tariff was to align oneself with the Republicans; to talk of labor was to suggest control by the Democrats. To say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited."
CBS purchased a teleplay in 1958 that writer Rod Serling hoped to produce as the pilot of a weekly anthology series. "The Time Element" marked Serling's first entry in the field of science fiction.
Several years after the end of World War II, a man named Peter Jenson (William Bendix) visits a psychoanalyst, Dr. Gillespie (Martin Balsam). Jenson tells him about a recurring dream in which he tries to warn people about the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor before it happens, but the warnings are disregarded. Jenson believes the events of the dream are real, and each night he travels back to 1941. Dr. Gillespie insists that time travel is impossible given the nature of temporal paradoxes. While on the couch, Jenson falls asleep once again but this time dreams that the Japanese planes shoot and kill him. In Dr. Gillespie's office, the couch Jenson was lying on is now empty. Dr. Gillespie goes to a bar where he finds Jenson's picture on the wall. The bartender tells him that Jenson had tended bar there, but he was killed during the Pearl Harbor attack.
With the "Time Element" script, Serling drafted the fundamental elements that defined the subsequent series: a science-fiction/fantasy theme, opening and closing narration, and an ending with a twist. "The Time Element" was purchased immediately, but shelved indefinitely.
This is where things stood when Bert Granet, the new producer for Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, discovered "The Time Element" in CBS' vaults while searching for an original Serling script to add prestige to his show. "The Time Element" (introduced by Desi Arnaz) debuted on November 24, 1958, to an overwhelmingly delighted audience of television viewers and critics alike. "The humor and sincerity of Mr. Serling's dialogue made 'The Time Element' consistently entertaining," offered Jack Gould of The New York Times. Over 6,000 letters of praise flooded Granet's offices. Convinced that a series based on such stories could succeed, CBS again began talks with Serling about the possibilities of producing The Twilight Zone. "Where Is Everybody?" was accepted as the pilot episode and the project was officially announced to the public in early 1959. Other than reruns at the time "The Time Element" was not aired on television again until it was shown as part of a 1996 all-night sneak preview of the new cable channel TVLand. It is available in an Italian DVD boxed set titled Ai confini della realtà – I tesori perduti. The Twilight Zone Season 1 Blu-ray boxed set released on September 14, 2010, offers a remastered high-definition version of the original Desilu Playhouse production as a special feature.
The series was produced by Cayuga Productions, Inc., a production company owned and named by Serling. It reflects his background in Central New York State and is named after Cayuga Lake, on which he owned a home, and where Cornell University and Ithaca College are located.
Aside from Serling, who wrote or adapted nearly two-thirds of the series' total episodes, writers for The Twilight Zone included leading authors such as Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, Earl Hamner, Jr., George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, Reginald Rose, and Jerry Sohl. Many episodes also featured new adaptations of classic stories by such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Jerome Bixby, Damon Knight, John Collier, and Lewis Padgett.
Twilight Zone's writers frequently used science fiction as a vehicle for social comment, as networks and sponsors who censored controversial material from live dramas were less concerned with seemingly innocuous fantasy and sci-fi stories. Frequent themes on The Twilight Zone included nuclear war, McCarthyism, and mass hysteria, subjects that were avoided on less serious primetime television. Episodes such as "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" offered specific commentary on current events and social issues. Other stories, such as "The Masks", "I Dream of Genie", or "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" were allegories, parables, or fables that reflected the moral and philosophical choices of the characters.
Despite his esteem in the writing community, Serling found the series difficult to sell. Few critics felt that science fiction could transcend empty escapism and enter the realm of adult drama. In a September 22, 1959, interview with Serling, Mike Wallace asked a question illustrative of the times: "...[Y]ou're going to be, obviously, working so hard on The Twilight Zone that, in essence, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, you've given up on writing anything important for television, right?" While Serling's appearances on the show became one of its most distinctive features, with his clipped delivery still widely imitated today, he was reportedly nervous about it and had to be persuaded to appear on camera. Serling often steps into the middle of the action while the characters remain oblivious to him, but on one notable occasion, they are aware of his presence: In the episode "A World of His Own", a writer (Keenan Wynn) with the power to alter his reality objects to Serling's narration and promptly erases Serling from the show.
In season two, due to budgetary constraints, the network decided – against Serling's wishes – to cut costs by shooting some episodes on videotape rather than film. The requisite multicamera setup of the videotape format precluded location shooting, severely limiting the potential scope of the storylines, and the experiment was abandoned after just six episodes ("Twenty Two", "Static", "The Whole Truth", "The Lateness of the Hour", "The Night of the Meek", and "Long Distance Call").
The original series contains 156 episodes. The episodes in seasons one through three are 30 minutes long with commercials (24 or 25 minutes without commercials). Season four (1962–63) consists of one-hour episodes with commercials (51 minutes without commercials). Season five returned to the half-hour format.
It was Serling's decision to sell his share of the series back to the network that eventually allowed for a Twilight Zone revival. As an in-house production, CBS stood to earn more money producing The Twilight Zone than it could by purchasing a new series produced by an outside company. Even so, the network was slow to consider a revival, turning down offers from the original production team of Rod Serling and Buck Houghton and later from American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.
CBS gave the new Twilight Zone a greenlight in 1984 under the supervision of Carla Singer, then Vice President of Drama Development. While the show did not come close to matching the enduring popularity of the original, some episodes – particularly Alan Brennert's love story "Her Pilgrim Soul" and J. Neil Schulman's "Profile in Silver" – were critically acclaimed. In a tribute to the original series, the opening credits include a brief image of Rod Serling. Four episodes are remakes of those from the original series: "Night of the Meek", "Shadow Play", "The After Hours" and "A Game of Pool", while "Dead Woman's Shoes" is an adaptation of "Dead Man's Shoes". Unlike the original series and the second revival, this series does not include the opening monologue during the title sequence. As well, the narration is all strictly voice-over and the narrator never appears on-screen.
In the early 1990s, Richard Matheson and Carol Serling produced an outline for a two-hour made-for-TV movie which would feature Matheson adaptations of three yet-unfilmed Rod Serling short stories. Outlines for such a production were rejected by CBS until early 1994, when Serling's widow discovered a complete shooting script ("Where the Dead Are") authored by her late husband, while rummaging through their garage. She showed the forgotten script to producers Michael O'Hara and Laurence Horowitz, who were significantly impressed by it. "I had a pile of scripts, which I usually procrastinate about reading. But I read this one right away and, after 30 pages, called my partner and said, "I love it," recalled O'Hara. "This is pure imagination, a period piece, literate – some might say wordy. If Rod Serling's name weren't on it, it wouldn't have a chance at getting made."
Eager to capitalize on Serling's celebrity status as a writer, CBS packaged "Where the Dead Are" with Matheson's adaptation of "The Theatre", debuting as a two-hour feature on the night of May 19, 1994, under the name Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics. The title represents a misnomer, as both stories were conceived long after Twilight Zone's cancellation. Written just months before Serling's death, "Where the Dead Are" starred Patrick Bergin as a 19th-century doctor who stumbles upon a mad scientist's medical experiments with immortality. "The Theatre" starred Amy Irving and Gary Cole as a couple who visits a cineplex where they discover the feature presentation depicts their own lives. James Earl Jones provided opening and closing narrations.
Critical response was mixed. Gannett News Service described it as "taut and stylish, a reminder of what can happen when fine actors are given great words." USA Today was less impressed, even suggesting that Carol Serling "should have left these two unproduced mediocrities in the garage where she found them." Ultimately, ratings proved insufficient to justify a proposed sequel featuring three scripts adapted by Matheson.
A second revival was developed by UPN in 2002, it was hosted by Forest Whitaker. It was broadcast in a one-hour format composed of two half-hour stories, it was canceled after one season. "It's Still a Good Life" is a sequel to "It's a Good Life", "The Monsters Are on Maple Street" is an adaptation of "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "Eye of the Beholder" is a remake of an episode from the original series, with Serling still credited as writer.
In December 2012, it was reported that Bryan Singer was developing and executive producing a third revival television series for CBS Television Studios. A writer for the series was not chosen and the program was not pitched to any networks. CBS, which broadcast the original series and first revival, was reportedly interested. In February 2013, Singer told TG Daily that the project was still in development and that he hoped to direct the pilot and have A-list actors appear on the revival. The following month, he told IGN that a writer with whom he had previously worked was in negotiations to join the revival and that he felt "passionate" towards the original series and the planned revival.
In February 2016, it was reported that Ken Levine would write and direct the pilot episode of the revival series. It was also reported that the series would be interactive. In November 2017, it was reported that Jordan Peele was developing a reboot of the series for streaming service CBS All Access with Marco Ramirez serving as potential showrunner. In December 2017, CBS All Access ordered the third The Twilight Zone revival to series. It was announced that the series would be produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Monkeypaw Productions and Genre Films. Jordan Peele, Marco Ramirez, and Simon Kinberg will serve as executive producers for the series and collaborate on the premiere episode. Win Rosenfeld and Audrey Chon will also serve as executive producers. Peele was revealed to be the new host and narrator in September 2018, and the new opening sequence was released. The series premiered on April 1, 2019.
The second episode of the series, "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet", is based on "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".