Burt Reynolds Talks Memoir Again

Burt Reynolds memoir has been released, and he recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about it. The publication quotes him as follows:

You created a bit of a stir recently by saying that Sally Field, who you dated in the in '70s and early '80s, was probably the love of your life. Do you have any regrets about admitting that publicly? 

No, not at all. She’s definitely the one that got away.

Have you heard from her since you made those comments? 

You know, I haven’t, and I’d like to but I haven’t. I thought that I’d hear from her, but I haven’t. I heard that she was very touched by that and wanted to tell me her thoughts, but she wouldn’t tell anybody else. She’s very guarded and for good reason.

Would you be pleased if this rekindled at a least friendship with her?

Very much so. Yeah. I would love that. I saw her son recently. I just spoke to him in a restaurant and he came over and told me that he apologized for writing about me in his book, which I didn’t even know he’d written one. And I said, "Don’t be crazy, don’t be silly. I don’t pay attention to that stuff. You and I are talking right now. I’m really glad to see you and you seem glad to see me and I only have good memories of you," and he got very choked up about it and it was so obvious that it was real. I adored the two boys she had.

You teach an acting class in Florida now. What’s that like?

You’d be shocked. There’s a lady who’s older than me taking classes. There’s going to be a reality show that’s in development about the master class that I’m teaching. I look forward to it every Friday night.

What advice would you give to the actors in the class?

If they could learn by my sort-of mistakes, which were that I turned down certain shows that I should’ve done and went after other ones. I didn’t realize at the time that I didn’t do films that I wanted to do — No. 1 in the box office, and I can' t believe that I wasn't really going after the shows that I really wanted to do.

Read the full interview at The Hollywood Reporter.