RIP Burt Reynolds

     I know I'm late to this but wanted to give tribute to Florida's adopted son Burt Reynolds who died on September 6th. Plus I wanted to take a little break from talk politics though he did cross paths with Donald Trump (which comes later). He was actually born in Lansing, Michigan and his family moved around quite a bit until they settled in Rivera Beach, Florida when Burt was 10 and before his death, he lived in Jupiter, Florida and Florida became his adopted home (though also lived in Hollywood for a time I'm sure). He also played a little college football with the FSU Noles and was Lee Corso roommate. He was a big supporter of FSU Football. Ironically, he played a character named Gator in a few films (White Lightning and Gator where he played Gator McKlusky). In Gator, he gave his mentor and guy who inspired him to be an actor Watson B. Duncan a role of Georgia Governor's press secretary. Initially, Reynolds after calling quits on his football career continued his studies to become a parole officer in the suggestion of his dad who was the police chief of Rivera Beach. Reynolds also had Tampa connections as well being a minority owner of the Tampa Bay Bandits of the United States Football League mostly because of his most famous character Bandit in Smokey and the Bandit and also it's sequel. He was no fan of Donald Trump who owned the New Jersey Generals and wanted to move the league which played in the Spring not to avoid competing against the NFL to the fall to compete against the NFL which ended up killing the league and yet Trump besides becoming president is beating the NFL (or at least it seems like he is) as president for something I've mentioned before and will mention again on a future post (because the issue of the anthem). Unsure what Burt Reynolds position on if the USFL should stay in the spring or move to the fall but principal owner John Bassett was against the move and threaten to move the team to the CFL which they were denied and Bassett sold the team to someone who agreed with the Donald to move to the fall. However on ESPN's 30 for 30 series "Who Killed the USFL?" Burt Reynolds was interviewed and when topic and person Donald Trump was mentioned, Burt said "When I shake his hand, I make sure my other hand is on my wallet," so he knew Trump was a crook. Another Tampa Connection he had was filming the movie "Cop and a Half" which was filmed here at Tampa. When I went to Twitter after Burt's death I was surprised that the movie "Cop and a Half" was actually trending on twitter and the actor who played Devon Butler in the film posted some tribunes on twitter. On an unrelated note, Sean O'Neal who was famous for playing the best friend who climbed the second story to Clarissa's room with a ladder on Clarissa Explains It All, played one of the two bullies in the film. Reynolds did a number of films in Florida and Georgia. When the news of his death was reported he was credited making Georgia a top filming location in the country by the Georgia Media and indirectly Andrew Gillum said in a Twitter back in February that he would bring back film tax credits in hopes to mirror the success of Georgia film industry. I'm sure there's room in the film industry to have success here. Besides a successful film career, Burt Reynolds had a hit TV show called the Evening Shade which lasted four seasons on CBS from 1990-1994 where he won an Emmy for Best Actor. Rest in Peace Bandit.