Burt Reynolds, sex symbol of the `70s, the man who 20 years ago posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine, is back in the movies playing opposite not a shapely female but a feisty 8-year-old boy.
This is Reynolds in his mature years. In ”Cop and a Half,” a film Reynolds describes as ”Dirty Harry and Home Alone,” Reynolds has come of age.
The one-time gadabout, now 56, is happily married to his longtime companion, actress Loni Anderson, and is a first-time father. His career, ailing in the `80s, has received a booster shot of late from a hit TV series in which he plays a family man.
Lucky for him, Hollywood is in a family way too.
In ”Cop and a Half,” an action-comedy that began filming in Tampa last week, Reynolds plays a crusty plainclothes detective who finds himself trapped with a half-pint partner (newcomer Norman Golden II) in his chase after three drug-dealing killers.
”I have always wanted for years to do a film with a kid,” Reynolds said, resting in his trailer during a break in filming. ”Because I have always had just an affinity for them. . . . At the time I was doing films, at the height of all those pictures I was doing, there weren`t kids in them. There were just cars and girls and things.
”I always knew that if I could ever do something in a film with a kid, it would be something special.”
In the movie, which is being directed by Henry Winkler, Reynolds`
curmudgeon of a character is slowly but surely transformed by the contagious joy and energy of the child.
It is a role for which Reynolds has been preparing since his adopted son, Quinton, was born 3 1/2 years ago.
”It`s something I haven`t played in film,” Reynolds said, ”but certainly in life I play it every day.”
Reynolds seems a changed man. He emerged from the `80s-sort of his personal trial by fire-with a rearranged value system, he said. In the `80s, on the heels of a five-year period from 1978 to 1982 in which he reigned as the world`s top box office draw, he suffered from a debilitating illness, an addiction to pain pills and a rash of bad movies.
Reynolds today is in an enviable position for any middle-age Hollywood hunk. Last year, he won an Emmy as best comedy actor for his performance in the popular CBS series ”Evening Shade” (which he co-produces), the comparable Golden Globe award and a People`s Choice award for the best male performer in a new TV series. It is, in his own words, a ”miraculous comeback.”
Reynolds had a less-than-auspicious return to the big screen in the late
`80s with such critically panned films as ”City Heat” and ”Rent-a-Cop.”
Still, there was ”Breaking In” in 1989, a low-budget art-house film in which Reynolds played an aging safecracker. Critics loved it.
The film was Reynolds` chance to prove once again to an arrogant, stereotyping Hollywood that he could act.
When Reynolds accepted his Emmy last year, he wisecracked in his winsome, self-deprecating manner that, ”I used to be in the movies.”
But his success in ”Evening Shade” has given him the opportunity to re- enter the film world as a major player. His revived profile made him one of the top candidates for the role in ”Cop and a Half,” said producer Paul Maslansky.
Winkler said there`s no beating Reynolds` screen presence. ”He always kids about that he once was a movie star, but he is really,” Winkler said.
”Inside him is that magnet, that power. He is a movie star. He`s a big star, not just famous for the minute.”
