Strike a flirtily nude pose for a women's magazine. Have a happily public affair with a TV chanteuse 19 years your senior. Tease your screen machismo in lightning banter with Johnny Carson. Make a lot of middling pictures in fast cars. Be an early victim of AIDS rumors. Just about die.
No actor would have mapped out this road to celebrity. But jaunty, reckless Burt Reynolds followed it, becoming the No. 1 box-office attraction for five straight years (1978-82) and, quite possibly, the zeitgeist star of his generation. You know what? This still is his generation. Last week, the day before...
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