HOLLYWOOD LOVE: DINAH SHORE AND BURT REYNOLDS

He said goodbye to the love of his life in 1994 and regretted it every day since ..

Every February, Burt Reynold an elderly man, grey and stooping, walked alone through Forest Lawns Cemetery, Palm Springs, California, and placed a wreath of roses on the grave of the woman he loved and lost.

Burt Reynolds outlived the love of his life, Dinah Shore by 24 years until his death in September of 2018, but he never forgot his true love.

They had met in 1970 when Burt Reynolds was 35 and Hollywood's most sought-after leading man. She was 53, now the grande dame of TV talk shows, cool, aloof and still hauntingly beautiful. Reynolds had burst into movies from college football and his dark macho looks made him the star of half a dozen big-earning Westerns and the dream lover of millions of women fans.

He had married and divorced TV Laugh-In star Judy Carne, and had well publicised affairs with Sally Field, Raquel Welch and tennis star Chris Evert. He was living with Japanese actress Miko Mayama and Hollywood rumour was that they would get married. But meeting Dinah Shore, as a guest on her TV chat-show, changed all that. "I had never met her before but out of the blue I asked her to come to Palm Springs for the weekend. She said no, but I knew it was the beginning of the most special relationship of my life.

"I'd never met anyone like her. I realised there was a big age gap between us but it didn't make the slightest difference. I was already in love with her."

"Being with Dinah opened every Hollywood door," Reynolds said. "I got to know Sinatra, Jack Benny, Edward G. Robinson, Groucho Marx, Peggy Lee, Orson Welles. Everyone knew Dinah and they all loved her."

After four years together, the happiness and closeness of Burt Reynolds and Dinah Shore had become Hollywood legend. "We dreamed of building a house in Hawaii. We couldn't have been more in love. But there was a snag. Dinah wouldn't marry me.

"She said it was because she couldn't give me children and it's true I wanted them badly. But we could have adopted. I knew it was more than that.

"Even so, Dinah had everything I ever wanted in a woman. And when I told her: 'I want to be with you for the rest of my life,' I really meant it. And yet a year later he was telling friends: "Breaking up with Dinah is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I knew it was time to get married or move on, and she refused to marry me."

During a tearful confrontation in 1975, Reynolds told Dinah Shore: "I will love you all my life. The hardest part is that I'm falling deeper in love with you every moment." Then he turned and walked away.

Reynolds cried for days afterwards. "A piece of me was lost. I missed the closeness and the friendship and to be truthful I've never stopped missing it ever since. Every time I picked up the phone I wanted to call her".

Burt Reynolds' desire for children made him marry glamorous Loni Anderson. They had a son, Quinton, but the marriage was soon in trouble and ended in a $10 million divorce.

Alone again, Burt Reynolds rang Dinah Shore hoping to get together again. But she refused to see him despite his pleading.

Finally, from a friend, he discovered her tragic secret — the reason why she had refused to marry him and why she now had broken off the relationship for good. Dinah Shore had terminal cancer. She died in 1994.

He never got to say goodbye to Dinah so for the rest of his life Burt would visit her grave, and now maybe they are together again...

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RIP: BURT REYNOLDS

Burt Reynolds, the mustachioed megastar who first strutted on screen more than half a century ago, died Thursday, according to his agent Todd Eisner. He was 82.

The Georgia native, whose easy-going charms and handsome looks drew prominent roles in films such as "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Boogie Nights, suffered a cardiac arrest, Eisner said.

An iconic Hollywood sex symbol in front of the camera, Reynolds also tried his directorial hand behind it, and later earned a reputation for philanthropy after founding the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film & Theatre in his home state of Florida.

His roles over the years ranged and pivoted from Southern heartthrob to tough guy to comedy, notably for his role as Rep. David Dilbeck in the 1996 film Striptease which flopped at the box office but earned him widespread praise for his comedic prowess. But it was John Boorman's 1972 thriller Deliverance which cast Reynolds as outdoorsman Lewis Medlock, that is widely credited for launching his early career. Reynolds called it "by far" his best film.

"I thought maybe this film is more important in a lot of ways than we've given it credit for," he said in an interview years later. The movie's infamous rape scene may have helped the public -- especially men -- better understand the horrors of sexual attacks, Reynolds said.

"It was the only time I saw men get up, sick, and walk out of a theater," he added. "I've seen women do that (before)," but not men.

Born in South Georgia, Reynolds and his family moved to Michigan and eventually wound up in southeastern Florida, according to the website of the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, where he was inducted in 1993. At Palm Beach High School, he first made a name for himself as a football star and earned an athletic scholarship to Florida State University. But when injuries derailed a promising athletic career, Reynolds turned to acting.

He then scored small parts in the late 1950s before landing a role in the New York City Center revival of "Mister Roberts" in 1957, as well as a recurring spot in the TV series "Gunsmoke."By 1974, Reynolds had hit it big and starred as an ex-football player who landed in prison in the film The Longest Yard.  Reynolds' notoriety soared through the late 1970s and 1980s, during which time he spearheaded the Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run movie franchises. He also earned People's Choice Awards in 1979, 1982 and 1983 as all-around male entertainer of the year.

But he also turned down some of the biggest roles in Hollywood history. From James Bond to Hans Solo in George Lucas' 1977 blockbuster "Star Wars," Reynolds also reportedly was among Paramount Pictures' top choices to play Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 epic "The Godfather."

His love life also drew headlines after a high-profile divorce to actress Loni Anderson preceded Reynolds bankruptcy filing in 1996, amid a budding romance with actor Sally Field. Before Field, he was linked to singer Dinah Shore, who was nineteen years older that Burt. Like many of the movie roles he chose, he made bad decisions in love as well.

In 1998, Reynolds scored his sole Oscar nomination for best supporting actor after his portrayal of a porn film producer in the film Boogie Nights despite his dislike of the film and its apparent glorification of the porn industry. Years later, with a mustache gone gray, he suffered from health issues that included open heart surgery. Reynolds also checked into a drug rehab clinic in 2009. The purpose was "to regain control of his life" after becoming addicted to painkillers prescribed following back surgery, his manager said.

Once among Hollywood's highest-paid actors, Reynolds later fell into financial trouble amid private ventures in an Atlanta restaurant and a professional sports team, though he continued to make cameo appearances and teach acting classes...

HEALTHWATCH: BURT REYNOLDS

Burt Reynolds rarely appears in public these days.

But the frail 79-year-old turned up at Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago on Saturday to promote his new biography, But Enough About Me.

It comes just three months after the iconic Hollywood tough guy shocked fans with his skinny, fragile appearance at WWCC in Philadelphia on May 9 when he talked about his book, due out on November 17.

Recounting a life in film, Burt has previously mentioned that the book will talk about the people he has worked with over the years, both good and bad.

'Setting the record straight is something that I have wanted to do for a while now, and with this book I will,' he said in a statement in July when publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons announced the book.

'This will be a project that will go into many areas I have never discussed.'

Burt Reynolds shocked fans recently when the once-strapping sex symbol made a rare public appearance, looking gaunt, frail, and using a cane.

The 79-year-old Hollywood legend appears to be facing a common problem among the elderly, which is the sudden loss of muscle mass and body weight. The condition often leads to difficulty walking and performing routine tasks. 

In Reynolds’ case, his thin appearance is a striking contrast to his public persona as a macho leading man. However, a top internist tells Newsmax Health, that frailty is not an inevitable fact of aging.

“Becoming thin and losing strength does happen, but I have patients in their 80s who look younger than some I have who are in their 50s,” says Michael Zimring, M.D., an internist at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., who has not treated Reynolds. “It all depends on the way they live.”

It may seem unlikely that a man such as Reynolds – so fit in his younger years that he played fullback for the Florida State football team – would end up so frail. But a string of serious health problems may have contributed to his weight loss. 

Back in the 1980s, when filming the movie City Heat, he was struck in the face with a metal chair, which broke his jaw and left him with a painful condition called temporo-mandibular joint dysfunction, or TMJ disorder. 

Unable to eat, he lost 30 pounds from his 5-foot-11 frame. Reynolds also became addicted to painkillers, a habit that took him several years to break. 

In 2009 he underwent back surgery and in 2010 he had a quintuple heart bypass. He reportedly had trouble eating following the heart operation, and again lost a large amount of weight, sparking rumors he had AIDS. He nearly died from a bout with the flu in early 2014...
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