Being the tough guy isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be in the movies, especially when a stunt goes wrong and the actor in question has to pay for it from the time it happens until they pass away. Burt Reynolds was almost always known as the macho type, the man’s man, and the guy who was just about as tough as they came, but there were times that this came back to haunt him since he often did things without really thinking what could happen. This happened in Deliverance when he decided to perform one of his own stunts and ended up with an injury that never fully healed and a bit of regret that was added to others as he continued to age. The human body is an amazing thing at times, but when it comes to taking damage there are a few instances when an individual will find that the damage doesn’t go away entirely. During a scene in which Reynolds had to go over the falls in the movie, he decided to take the scene on his own rather than allow his stunt double or a dummy to take the spill. While planning a stunt and taking the time to get it right, and training an actor on how to perform a stunt, can be a way to minimize any possible accidents, this doesn’t appear to have been what happened before Burt went and injured himself in a way that’s a little embarrassing but can also be extremely painful.
When going over the falls he actually cracked his tailbone on a rock. The reason this is an embarrassing injury is that anything associated with one’s backside is bound to be comical for a lot of people since the idea of ‘breaking your ass’ will strike many people as humorous in a very big way. Unfortunately for Burt, the injury stayed with him even after it healed and caused a great deal of pain over the years. It wasn’t the only injury that he incurred during the making of a movie, but one would have thought that after a while he would have realized that having a stunt double take on some of the more dangerous scenes was the way to go, especially since he was injured in ways that affected him for years leading up to his passing. There’s a time when the macho act has to be dropped just a bit for the sake of one’s health, especially when stuntmen exist for a reason, and that’s to make the scene look good while risking life and limb so that the actors don’t have to. The big difference is that a stuntman is trained experienced when it comes to taking a hit, risking their lives, and they typically work with a team in order to make sure that risk is as low as it can get, which might take time and a lot of planning, but it’s worth it when everyone can walk away. It’s true, not everything tends to go according to plan at times, but the fact is that Reynolds did end up regretting what he’d done in the movie, as he admitted during an interview nearly three years before his death.
There’s no denying that Burt Reynolds was a movie legend and that he was considered one of the manliest men of his time and any other. But the risks that he took with his own body didn’t really pan out since just being what some might call an alpha male, a tough guy isn’t enough when it comes to knowing how to perform a stunt without getting hurt in the process. Being tough and ‘gutting it out’ isn’t always the way to go since precautions might sound like what a sissy would worry about back in the day, but in truth, precautions are what keep people from being injured or even killed at times. It’s true, some folks feel that being safe about things isn’t living, that it’s a way to avoid living, but the more rational-minded individuals would vehemently disagree since there’s more to be gained from life by being cautious and doing whatever is necessary to make a movie look good while at the same time making sure that everyone can give a confident thumbs up when the stunt is over and the scene has been shot. That macho schtick doesn’t really pan out all the time since even some of the toughest guys in the world couldn’t possibly take that much damage and still walk around as though nothing had happened.
Reynolds was pretty candid about what he’d gone through and what it had done to his health over the years, which is likely why regret came so easily after the fact. There are stunt people there for a reason after all.
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