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Dig A Hole: Jerry Reed, C&W singer/Burt Reynolds co-star

September 2nd, 2008 by Scott Marks

“Director” Hal Needham, Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed on the set of “Smokey and the Bandit” (1977)

Jerry Reed, a country singer who played Burt Reynolds sidekick and appeared in all three Smokey and the Bandit movies, died Monday of complications from emphysema at age 71.

Jerry Reed Hubbard was born in Atlanta, Georgia on March 30, 1937. Jerry’s parents parted company four months after his birth. He and his sister spent 7 years in foster homes and orphanages before being reunited with their mother in 1944. By the time he reached high school, Reed was already a prolific singer, songwriter. In his late teens, Reed was signed by Capitol Records to a three year contract. Working for publisher and record producer Bill Lowery, Reed first gained recognition when Gene Vincent covered his Crazy Legs in 1958.

When his committment to Capitol reached its end, Lowery signed Reed to his National Recording Corporation. While at NRC, Reed functioned both as a recording artist and a member of the studio back-up band.

After a stinit in the military, Reed moved to Nashville in 1961 to continue his career as a recording artist. He achieved his first bonafide chart hit with 1967’s Guitar Man, a song Elvis Presley soon covered.

His easygoing, good-old-boy persona soon found a home on television. In 1972 he starred in the short-lived variety show, The Jerry Reed When You’re Hot You’re Hot Hour.After a stint on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, Jerry was forever immortalized in ink and paint when he appeared as “Himself” in Scooby-Doo Meets the Harlem Globetrotters. Dino took notice and before long Reed was a regular on Dean Martin Presents The Golddiggers.

In 1976, Reed cracked the big screen with Gator, his first of five features (and two TV series) opposite his good buddy Burt Reynolds. Not that I would ever again subject myself to W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, any of the Smokey films or…gulp…Stroker Ace, Jerry Reed never got on my nerves. As Burt’s tall, good-lookin’ cornpone sidekick, Jerry was a prince of amiable hicks who would have been right at home living upstairs of Floyd the Barber in Mayberry. Don’t get me wrong. He was no Jimmy Hampton. (I still tear up when the the exploding light bulb permanently removes Jimmy from The Longest Yard.) Still, Reed did what he did with style and a good-natured sense of fun.

According to the Tennessean, Reed’s health declined in recent years and he focused on spiritual studies and on bringing attention to veterans’ issues.

“For 50 years, all I’d done was take, take, take,” he told The Tennessean’s Tim Ghianni in 2007. “I decided from now on it is going to be giving. And I’m way behind. We’re all way behind. We live this life like what’s down here is what it’s all about. We’re temporary, son, like a wisp of smoke.”

Reed is survived by Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell, his wife of 49 years and two daughters Charlotte and Seidina.


Jerry on “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour”

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Filed Under Obituaries

Loni Anderson gets married for the fourth time!

May 18th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Loni Anderson auditioning for the role of The Joker

What do you think of when former WKRP in Cincinnati star Loni Anderson is mentioned? Big boobs, bigger hair, a doomed marriage to Burt Reynolds and her uncanny ability to mangle any dialog put before her.

A former girlfriend who found the same contemptuous delight in the Mamie Van Doren wannabe that I do in Bob Hope hipped me to Loni’s supreme mediocrity. While I’ve successfully avoided dipping into WKRP, her made-for-TV movies never fail to please.

Loni blames mom for pointing her in the direction of Burt Reynolds. When she was a teenager, her mother was very struck by an attractive actor on TV and told Loni that was the kind of guy she ought to wed. Her calamitous seven year marriage to the actor was a plastic surgeon’s dream.

The two met during the filming of Stroker Ace, arguably the worst entry in Reynolds’ s**t-kicking series of 70s and 80s hillbilly comedies.

According to Reynolds, he never saw his vain wife out of makeup. After their ugly divorce, Reynold noted “I’m paying the third highest alimony and child support in the world. And the only two ahead of me are sheiks.”

Last night, the 62-year-old former pin-up queen exchanged vows with The Brothers Four singer Bob Flick. The bride was given away by her son Quinton Reynolds, spawn of Burt.

Loni and Bob originally dated for six months when Anderson was a teenage model, but they split and went their separate ways as her acting career took off.

It is the fourth marriage for Anderson, who has decided to keep her maiden name. She had previously been wed to Ross Bickell (no relation to Travis) and Bruce Hasselbeck (no relation to The View’s Republican harpy Elizabeth.)

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