Burt Reynolds: my family values

Dad was my hero but he thought acting was for sissies. I hoped he’d get over it, but well into my career he asked when I was going to get a real job. He never acknowledged I was any good at acting, and I felt that no amount of success would make me a man in his eyes.

Dad always had a job, even during the Great Depression, and would do anything to put food on the table for my mom and sister, Nancy Ann, who was born in 1930. I came along in 1936. My sister was a lot like Mom: quiet and strong. She was a terrific gal, but we never got to know each other well, I guess because of the age difference.

During the second world war, Dad was a lieutenant in the field artillery and earned a chestful of medals for his role in the Normandy invasion and the Battle of the Bulge. He never talked about it. After VJ Day, he stayed in the army for three more years as part of the occupation of Japan. He was a colonel by then and the army promised to make him a general if he stayed on for another three. On hearing this, Mom said, “You may be a general, but you won’t be my husband.”

Mom carried a lot on her shoulders when Dad was overseas and handled it with grace and good humour. Dad was strong but Mom, who was a head nurse, was the boss. Shortly after he came home, she announced we were moving from Michigan to Florida. He didn’t want to go, but she put her foot down.

When we settled in Palm Beach County, Dad got a job in construction and I went to work with him. One day a wire caught on his finger and sliced it off from the knuckle to the tip. He didn’t even say ouch, he just picked it up, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and stuck it in his pocket. “When we get home tonight, remind me to give this to your mother,” he said. Mom was only a little surprised. She knew how he was.

Dad was later appointed chief of police. One night he took me to a bar where he had to arrest two hard guys armed with knives. He told them to put the weapons down, then jammed one of the knives into the bar, snapping the blade. “Lousy blade,” he said, throwing the handle at its owner. I thought we’d have to fight our way out, but instead one of the men said, “Your dad’s a hell of a man.”

I fell in love with the actress Sally Field when we worked on the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit. Sally and I proposed to each other more than once, but every time I wanted to get married, she didn’t and vice versa. If we had married, I think we would have been like fire and gasoline. Loni Anderson and I got together after Sally and I broke up. She asked me to dance and whispered in my ear that she wanted to have my baby. We called it quits in 1993 and the press went into high gear. Princess Diana sent me a thank-you note for keeping her off the cover of People magazine.

The worst part of the divorce was losing custody of Quinton, whom we’d adopted. He was only six when we split up and the judge decided he’d be better off with his mother. I was determined to be the opposite of my dad, so I made sure he knew how much I loved him. He knew he was adopted from an early age because somebody close to us decided to tell him. It’s been hard because he lives across the street from his mother. I don’t think he’s heard the greatest things from her about me. We talk on the phone, but it’s not a great relationship. I love him so much and I think he loves me, but we don’t spend as much time together as I’d like and it’s hard.

Mom died in 1992, when she was 90. Dad died in his sleep exactly 10 years later, aged 95. He never said he loved me, but he did finally say that he was proud of me. And that was enough.