Burt Reynolds was Hollywood’s top box office draw for five successive years from 1978 but never achieved the kind of respect and adulation heaped on Marlon Brando. He also, famously, turned down a staggering number of high-profile and subsequently lucrative and iconic roles, from James Bond and Han Solo, to Richard Gere’s role in Pretty Woman and Jack Nicholson’s roles in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s nest AND Terms of Endearment – both of which won Oscars. Burt was formally offered the Al Pacino role in The Godfather first but one, increasingly large, problem stood in his way. WATCH BRUT REYNOLDS AND MARLON BRANDO ATTACK EACH IN THE VIDEOS BELOW
When Burt first started gaining attention in Hollywood in the late 1950s on television, it was often his looks that garnered the most comments – particularly his resemblance to a young Marlon Brando in his chiselled and brooding prime.
In fact, in a May 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone called The Bard this was deliberated exploited, along with some rather fine acting. It was about a screenwriter inspired by the ghost of Shakespeare and features Burt’s character Rocky Rhodes very blatantly channeling every method acting tick and mannerism of Marlon with uncanny and hilarious accuracy.
By then, there was bad blood between the actors and it would only worsen through the decades. WATCH BURT IMITATE MARLON BELOW.
Burt spoke later in his life about turning down the role of Michael Corleone in 1972’s The Godfather. The Mafioso’s father Vito was played by Marlon.
In his memoire, But Enough About Me, Burt revealed that Marlon threatened to quit the movie if he was cast and tensions grew so high that he was forced to walk away.
In recent years an outrageously vicious recording came to light of Marlon on the set of 1979’s Apocalypse Now. The subject of Burt comes up and he launches into a no-holds-barred decimation of his fellow actor.
Marlon starts: “Don’t say that name around me. He is the epitome of something that makes me want to throw up. I don’t know why I hate him…”
Except he then goes on to detail exactly why he held Burt in such low esteem.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO BELOW (NOTE: THE VIDEO SHOWS IMAGES FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE ABOVE)
Marlon added: “He is the epitome of everything that is disgusting about the thespian. He worships at the temple of his own narcissism. Totally narcissistic person.
“What really disgusted me… I saw him on TV one time. It was the opening of a movie he did called (The Man Who Loved) Cat Dancing. He had ordered some (Native American) Indian kids there because it was a little anti-Indian and he wanted to make some compensations…
“The kid was brought in and was about a three or four-year-old kid. He wanted to show how loving he was, so he stooped down and was playing for the cameras, ‘Oh how I love children,’ that sort of thing… And the kid started to go away to go off camera, so he pulled the kid back, trying to make the kid make a little scene of how sweet Burt was in respect to children… It was such a sh**ty (thing)… The whole idea of hustling children. The kid wouldn’t do the bulls**t,”
The following year, Burt seized the opportunity to unleash another brutal impersonation of Marlon on TV, this time on Saturday Night Live.
In the sketch, the host ‘Baba Wawa’ is trying to interview ‘Marlon Brando’ in bed but all he wants to do is stuff his face with food. It was a painfully sharp commentary on the actor’s notorious weight issues.
In the final months of his life in 2019, Burt was once more on the talk show circuit, promoting his final film, The Last Movie Star. He was enjoying another career renaissance and tragically would die just when shooting was about to begin on his next role Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.
Burt told Andy Cohen on Watch what Happens Next if he was upset at how much notoriety the film had without him: “No, I was very flattered. I was flattered he was upset…”
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