Died at 90
male
Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018) was a European-American/Native-American actor, director, and producer, considered a symbol and icon of American popular culture. Reynolds first rose to prominence when he starred in several different television series such as Gunsmoke (1962–1965), Hawk (1966), and Dan August (1970–1971). Although Reynolds had leading roles in such films as Navajo Joe (1966), his breakthrough role was as Lewis Medlock in Deliverance (1972). Reynolds played the leading role – often a lovable rogue – in a number of subsequent box office hits, such as The Longest Yard (1974), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Semi-Tough (1977), The End (1978), Hooper (1978), Starting Over (1979), Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981), Sharky's Machine (1981), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), and Cannonball Run II (1984), several of which he directed himself. He was nominated twice for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Reynolds was voted the world's number one box office star for five consecutive years (from 1978 to 1982) in the annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll, a record he shares with Bing Crosby. After a number of box office failures, Reynolds returned to television, starring in the sitcom Evening Shade (1990–1994), which won him a Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. His performance as high-minded pornographer Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997) brought him renewed critical attention, earning him another Golden Globe (for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture), with nominations for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Pompous paleontologist Rick Marshall has a low-level job at the La Brea Tar Pits, three years after a disastrous interview with Matt Lauer of Today became a viral video and ruined his career. Doctoral candidate Holly Cantrell tells him that his controversial theories combining time warps and paleontology inspired her. She shows him a fossil with an imprint of a cigarette lighter that he recognizes as his own along with a crystal made into a necklace that gives off strong tachyon energy. She convinces him to finish his tachyon amplifier and come help her on a seemingly routine expedition to the cave where Holly found the fossil, which is in the middle of nowhere. With cave gift shop owner Will Stanton they raft into the cave, where Marshall has detected high levels of tachyons. He activates the tachyon amplifier, triggering an earthquake that opens a time warp into which the raft falls. The group finds themselves in a desert, filled with various items from many eras, and without the amplifier. They rescue a primate-like creature, Cha-Ka of the Pakuni tribe, who becomes their friend and guide.
