Actor Reynolds Discusses Hollywood Ups and Downs

A clean-shaven and seemingly relaxed Burt Reynolds came to Harvard last night.

"I was a bit frightened to come here," Reynolds told a group of about 170 students last night at Lowell House. "After all," the actor quipped, "college students aren't my usual audience, much less Ivy League students."

Reynolds spoke about his film "Deliverance," which he asked that anyone who planned to attend last night's talk view before speaking with him, and talked about his varied movie career and his ups and downs in Hollywood.

Delivery

"The movie was my first deliverance out of bad films," Reynolds said, adding, "No, it was my deliverance out of unsuccessful films; I made bad films after that, but at least they were successful."

Describing the difficulties he had with creating the domineering character of Louis in "Deliverance," Reynolds said that "there's a time when you have to get in touch with something inside you that terrifies you. You have to crawl inside of it and get in control of it."

He said there was a part of Louis in him that he disliked, because "all the time I was growing up, I hated who I was. I knew there was someone that was funny inside of me and meanwhile I was forced to go around being a jock."

Reynolds discussed his role in "Starting Over," a movie which has been on location in Boston for three weeks.

"I never wanted to do a film so badly, except maybe 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' which I didn't try hard enough to get, and lost out to Jack Nicholson," he said. He added that the movie, which will be released in 1979, is a "romantic comedy, sort of a masculine counterpart of An Unmarried Woman,'" in which a middle-aged, conservative college teacher tries to recover from his divorce.

Reynolds came to Harvard as a guest of the Side-by-Side Council for the Performing Arts, which attempts to bring prominent theater people to speak to Harvard audiences, Danielle A. Huberman '79, president of the group, said yesterday.

Presents

The council presented Reynolds with Harvard jogging shorts, a Radcliffe sweatshirt and a matching set of women's jogging gear after he finished his talk.

Simin M. Yazdgerdi '82 said Reynolds was far less domineering than she expected. "He was a really nice guy, very down-to-earth," she added.

"I think he's more of an intellectual, and he wanted to talk more about points of film directing, not his personal life." James W. Blake '82 said. "I think he wanted to prove himself intellectually to us and with the kind of questions he was asked, he didn't get a chance," he added.

The council is hoping to bring "Starting Over" co-star Candice Bergen to Harvard in two weeks, and director Alan J. Pakula in March