He Had Dreams of Becoming a Football Player
Burt Reynolds was born on February 11, 1936, in Lansing, Michigan. Surprisingly, Burt didn’t have any dreams of making it big on the silver screen. Instead, he was focused on football. The star was a skilled player and attended Florida State University on a football scholarship. But an unfortunate (or fortunate?) car accident threw his athletic dreams out the window. He suffered a severe knee injury, which made it impossible for him to get back in the game.
Photo by Florida Stage / Collegiate Images / Getty Images
After coming to terms with his doomed football career, Reynolds thought of joining his father in the police force. He played around with this idea for a while, but a drama teacher named Watson B. Duncan planted a different idea in young Reynolds’s mind. He encouraged him to pursue acting.