On Burt Reynolds ...
We’ve all seen Academy Awards shows, right? Each year, the losing nominees, however disappointed they might actually be, smile and applaud for the winner. They’re actors, right? But I’ll never forget Burt Reynolds’ reaction in 1998 when Robin Williams for “Good Will Hunting” and not Reynolds for “Boogie Nights” won the Oscar for best actor in a supporting role: pure, unvarnished devastation. Reynolds, a wonderful actor when he was given the chance to be, died on Thursday, Sept. 6 at age 82. Too often — and I guess this was partly his fault — Reynolds was dismissed as a comedy/action star who, like John Wayne and sometimes James Garner, was dismissed as basically playing himself. Just a big, good-looking guy whom women wanted and men wanted to be. Clearly, this haunted him throughout his career. I remember seeing him on a talk show, noting that his former girlfriend Sally Field — who’d begun her career on TV as “The Flying Nun” — had metamorphized into an Oscar winner in “Norma Ra