Exclusive: Adam Rifkin wrote and directed The Last Movie Star, the 2018 release starring Burt Reynolds, who died Thursday at 82. The iconic actor played an aging screen hero who is talked into attending a local film festival that plans to give him a career achievement award. The event turns out to be “run” by a pair of starstruck local dudes. Here is Rifkin’s first-person remembrance of the real-life screen legend.
I am utterly heartbroken by the news of Burt Reynolds’ passing. This one hits hard. Really hard. They don’t loom larger than The Bandit. And Hollywood doesn’t make movie stars like Burt Reynolds anymore. The world has lost a genuine legend today, but I also lost a friend.
Growing up in Chicago, Burt was my childhood hero. He was the coolest and the funniest, and he never took himself seriously. That self-deprecating sense of humor was what made him so likable.
I am utterly heartbroken by the news of Burt Reynolds’ passing. This one hits hard. Really hard. They don’t loom larger than The Bandit. And Hollywood doesn’t make movie stars like Burt Reynolds anymore. The world has lost a genuine legend today, but I also lost a friend.
Growing up in Chicago, Burt was my childhood hero. He was the coolest and the funniest, and he never took himself seriously. That self-deprecating sense of humor was what made him so likable.
- 9/7/2018
- by Adam Rifkin
- Deadline Film + TV
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