Is your birthday New Year’s Eve too?
Happy Burt Day!
Of course!! Well, not really. NYE in LA is basically to watch the replay of the Bally-by drop while binging favorite shows.
I like having a birthday now. Hated them in my 30s. But why not be happy about another anniversary of existence?
I love my “senior moments” like when I begged for parking change on Ventura Bl, ran to the meter, fed the meter before turning my head, seeing my car parked four spaces down from the meter I was feeding, gouged my car for more silver looking change and fed that to the right meter.
I think that picture has been photoshopped. Why would someone from Georgia have an outline of Florida on his hat?
WAG because Burt Reynolds grew up in Florida.
ETA, I’m not seeing much in the way of a direction connection between the two, but he did appear to be pretty loyal to the state.
You probably know the connection between Burt and Florida State, but if not, here goes.
Buddy, as he was known when he was at FSU, was a highly-recruited running back out of Palm Beach High School. He fell in love with Florida State on his recruiting visit when fellow West Palm Beach native Dick Howser, who would become the Seminoles’ first baseball All-American, and football star Lee Corso, eagerly hosted him on campus.
According to Wiki, Reynolds has a lot more ties to Florida than Georgia. He may or may not have been born in Georgia, but it appears he spent much of his early life in Florida, and that’s where he died.
As the name “Bandit” painted on the car would suggest, the picture is from Smokey and the Bandit II*, so the hat reflects his character, not Reynolds himself.
*Googling for that photo turned up other shots from that sequence that identified the film as the second in the series.
And you’re ruling out the possibility that the actor, Burt Reynolds, chose that hat as a tribute to Florida?
Here’s a picture of Paul Rudd from Clueless, wearing a hat from his [Rudd’s] college.
Doesn’t that one take place, at least partially, in Florida?
That’s the one where they smuggle an elephant from Miami to Atlanta while being pursued by a sheriff from Texas.
Maybe I’m thinking about it too much.
Not ruling it out, but although actors are sometimes allowed to wear personal items on set, as in the example you gave, in the majority of cases, the director and production staff want every element of a costume to reflect some aspect of the character. I would expect this to be especially true with something as identifiable as a state outline on a hat.
I haven’t seen the film, but perhaps someone who has can confirm or refute your idea that the character is connected to Florida. I strongly suspect that he is.
Or maybe Smokey and the Bandit II is a bad movie, and the director and production staff either weren’t that good at their jobs or just didn’t really care.
Edit: I now see that it was directed by Hal Needham (like the first one), so I retract my theory that he wasn’t good at his job.
In True Grit, Matt Damon wore a cowboy hat whose band had two little buckles aligned to create the letter B for his beloved Boston. Star clout has much to do with it.
Texas governor Greg Abbott (R) texted ‘our prayers and deepest condolences to First Lady Rosalynn Carter and the entire Carter family.’ He later revised the statement to remove any mention of the former First Lady, who died in 2023.
Burt Reynolds was key to the development and existence of the franchise. The original film was conceived of by stuntman Hal Needham, who originally intended it to be a low budget B film starring musician Jerry Reed as the Bandit. (Reed wrote and performed the theme song for the film “Eastbound and Down” and played Bandit’s friend “Snowman” in the series, and ended up playing the main character in the third film of the series.) Hal struggled to get anyone to finance the film (even on a low budget), or even take him seriously until he got his friend Burt Reynolds to help.
Hal wrote the script on legal pads, and upon seeing it Burt said that it was the worst script he’d ever read, but he would still help him make the film. A lot of the dialog was improvised on set.
The main villain of the film, “Buford T. Justice” (who is the “Smokey” in the film title) was reportedly the actual name of a real state highway patrolman in Florida, who was known to Burt Reynolds’ dad when his dad was Police Chief of Riviera Beach, Florida.
Given all of that information, it’s not a surprise for the state of Florida to be given a nod as part of the Bandit’s attire.
Now that there is the sign of a really skilled politician. Ain’t got no rocket surgeons in Austin, now do they? Nope. Nosirree Bob; no rocket surgeons at all.
I expect that if Trooper Justice was still active in the Highway Patrol at the debut of the movie he caught an awful lot of shit from his co-workers afterwards.
But maybe he got a chuckle or two out of folks he’d just pulled over. “Good afternoon Ma’am. I’m Trooper Buford T. Justice. May I see your license and registration please?”
I forgot to mention, the Buford character himself was modeled after Burt’s own dad. Basically, Burt described how his dad acted and talked, and they used that in developing the iconic character. And the “sumbitch” phrase the character used frequently was something Burt’s dad said often.
Just…ten trillion questions to ask here…
He’s not a trooper, he’s the Sheriff.