No one was sure what Burt Reynolds was going to do when he stepped onstage at The Orleans' Showroom Thursday night. But a roomful of fans showed up to watch him do it.
The evening was a pleasant surprise, one filled with laughter and nostalgia (for those who were around for the early years of his career). It was not a confessional. Reynolds didn't reveal any deep, dark secrets, nor did he offer any apologies for mistakes he may have made along the way.
The 66-year-old actor is still charming, witty and possessed with a rakish persona. A few women in the audience sighed as he stepped out from behind the curtains and sauntered across the stage wearing a black, Western-cut suit and cowboy boots.
More than one fan was heard asking if Reynolds was going to sing and dance during his performance, which continues through Sunday.
Reynolds neither sang nor danced, but he kept a full house entertained with a stream of stories gleaned from more than 45 years in films and television.
With barely a pause, Reynolds unfurled a series of tales, most of which involved his personal experiences with some of the biggest names in Hollywood -- Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, Martin Sheen, Joanne Woodward and Raquel Welch, to name a few.
Reynolds spent 80 minutes regaling the audience with his exploits and dropping the names of his closest friends, many of them the elite of Hollywood, such as Clint Eastwood.
"Clint Eastwood and I have been friends for 40-something years," he said. "We were under contract to Universal, and both of us got fired the same day. The man who fired Clint told him he talked too slow and his tooth was chipped and he refused to fix it and his Adam's apple stuck out way too far.
"I said, 'What about me?' He said, 'You can't act.' "
For someone who supposedly can't act, Reynolds has had a long and successful career that includes more than 100 films and television series.
Some of his stories were mere anecdotes, others in some detail. Most went for the laughs. A few he cleaned up for an audience that appeared to be close to his own age. But also in attendance were plenty of younger fans who seemed to enjoy his memories, though they may not have been born when he was riding the crest of his popularity in the 1970s.
As he chatted, Reynolds paced like a caged tiger across the stage, which had a living room setting -- sofa, easy chair, coffee table. On the wall at the rear of the stage was a giant screen, on which flashed photographs of Reynolds through the years.
A portable bar was on the left side of the stage, on which sat a glass of water and a bowl of grapes. As he paced, he frequently returned to the grapes and nibbled on them throughout the performance.
Reynolds seems to have a natural talent for storytelling, but his instinct was polished by listening to some of the best -- such as David Niven, Jack Benny and Peter Ustinov, among others. He can hold his own in any crowd of raconteurs.
The former stuntman has a good sense of timing, he has interesting stories to tell and he doesn't mind poking fun at himself.
"Look at those short legs," Reynolds said, referring to a picture of himself on the screen. "I'm over 6 feet tall and I can wear Danny DeVito's pants."
He said he lost his virginity in the back seat of a '48 Ford.
"I was alone at the time," Reynolds quipped.
He gave his fans a quick tour of his life.
"When I was growing up we lived in a little town on the other side of the river from Palm Beach -- old money," Reynolds said. "In the summertime, when I was a kid, everybody (the homeowners) left.
"What we did was, we would sneak into the houses, didn't do any damage because we wanted to go back. We had beer, played Fats Domino records, danced and everything. There were the Dodge estate, the Kennedy estate and the Post estate. Years later, when I was making a couple of movies, I finally got asked to a party at the Post estate and Ms. Post said, 'Let me show you around.' I said, 'No, let me show you around.' "
Reynolds did not shy away from his love affairs.
"I went to pick up a girl and her father said next time pick her up at the service entrance," he recalled. "I said, 'That's all right, because that's what I had in mind anyway.' "
While visiting Tokyo he fell in love with a geisha and brought her back to the United States. After two years, he met Dinah Shore and fell in love and he and the geisha parted.
"The next time I saw her she was in Beverly Hills riding in a Rolls Royce convertible," Reynolds said. "The next day she married Barbra Streisand's manager."
Reynolds said his father arrested him three times.
"One time he arrested me for fighting these other two guys," Reynolds recalled. He said his father released the others into the custody of their fathers, but Reynolds had to remain.
"He said to me, 'Your father didn't show.' So I had to stay in jail."
Reynold's closest friend growing up was a guy nicknamed Peanut. Peanut was Dick Howser, who grew up to become a professional baseball player and then to manage the Kansas City Royals from 1981-87, guiding them team to two division titles and a World Championship (1995). Howser died of brain cancer in 1987.
Reynolds attended Florida State on a football scholarship.
"I was going to go to Miami, because Peanut was going there," he said. "But the coach said there were 15 girls for every guy at Florida State, and I thought I knew where I could go to get a good education."
After a knee injury ended his football career, Reynolds said he joined the drama department.
"I realized there were a lot of ladies over there and so it was probably a good place to study."
Fans at Thursday's one-man show learned that Reynolds' life is a scrapbook for everyone to study -- and enjoy.
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