On Sunday, April 6, 2003 at 12:14:35 AM UTC-8, Mpoconnor7 wrote:
WTH did Hollywood see in that guy anyways?
The ladies like the 'stache.
His bachelor playboy image had a lot to do with it; his well publicized affairs
with Dinah Shore and Sally Field. His posing nude in Playgirl also added to that image; he was the first actor ever to do such a thing. In all his roles in that era he played likeable characters, unlike Clint Eastwood, for example,
who generally played a hardass in many of his films until he started doing the
chimp movies and he began to lighten up a little. Most of Burt's characters were happy go lucky anti-establishment types who liked to flaunt the law by driving fast cars and outrunning the cops, or taking on the system in one way or another like in The Longest Yard. He was the number one male film star for four or five years in a row.
I always thought Burt was at his best when he wasn't playing the good ole boy;
Boogie Nights (where he wore a goatee) is the most famous example but movies like Starting Over (shaved moustache) and The Man Who Loved Women (moustache and beard) were other attempts to to something different, and he wasn't too bad
cast against type. He could have been a much better actor (and much more respected actor) if he had taken more risks during his prime instead of doing one Hal Needham film after another to stay on top the pyramid for as long as he
could.
Michael O'Connor - Modern Renaissance Man
"The probability of one person being right increases in a direct porportion to
the intensity with which others try to prove him wrong"
Vords of Vizdom:
- Macho does not prove mucho.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
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