NOT ENOUGH ABOUT HIM.

I recently bought a book on my kindle because I was in a hurry to choose something and thought this Hollywood bio might have some good gossip. The book was But Enough About Me by Burt Reynolds. I was never a fan of his kind of movies and always assumed he was an arrogant and vain mutli-married macho boor. Boy was I wrong. The book is charming, endlessly interesting, and more about all the people he liked than about him.  He praises such famous people as Bette Davis (a close friend) Dinah Shore (the love of his life) Roy Rogers, Jim Brown, Dolly Parton, Goldie Hawn, Sally Field, Marcello Mastroianni, the stuntmen he's worked with and admired, and many others. Even those celebrities he didn't like (such as Racquel Welch)  are still praised for their talents if not their character.  And I doubt he ever had a problem with anyone's race or sexual preference. He was candid enough to admit that posing nude for Cosmo was a mistake, especially right after the praise he received for Deliverance.  He also admitted he starred in Boogie Nights reluctantly, while still praising the director and cast. As Spencer Tracy said to Katharine Hepburn in Desk Set, "Never assume." So while this is essentially light reading, it came as a great lesson to me. I will certainly try in the future not to typecast a person before I know more about them.. Who ever thought I'd become a Burt Reynolds fan?

Note: So many rags today delight in showing celebrities when they are old. Let's recall how Burt (who is 80) looked and still looks in many of his movies.