Good bye Mr. Reynolds

I got the text this afternoon from two of my Palm Springs friends who I first met when we all called this man "Boss."

My first real career job was working at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre as the Marketing Manager's assistant. I was in my late 20's and in the small town of Jupiter, Florida working at the BRDT was a great gig. I regularly interacted with celebrities, attended fancy opening nights, and got to know most of the area's major media.

My time at the theatre was short, only a year, but I made some of my dearest friends and created some of my greatest memories in those short 52 weeks. I was also able to see up-close-and-personal the true greatness of this man. Known best for his acting, Burt was an amazing director as well. However, it's not those attributes that I will remember of him. What I observed at my time at the theatre and the years after was a man who was so giving of his time, talent and money to young actors that in the end there was little left for himself. He built and personally funded the BRDT so that young actors had away to escape the Hollywood Catch 22 which said you couldn't get decent work with out a SAG card and you can't get a SAG card until you do decent work.

One of my favorite stories of my time at BRDT doesn't have a lot to do with Mr. Reynolds directly but did teach me a great life lesson. It took place on after a particularly stressful day when a rumor was circulating about Mr. Reynold's health which was being impacted by a severe case of TMJ. It was the 80's and a man who was dropping weight drastically as Reynolds' condition was causing him to do, was suspected of having AIDS. I was receiving calls all day at the theatre asking if we could confirm the rumor and as I always I told every press person, "I'm sorry we don't handle Mr. Reynolds personal media. You will need to get in touch with his Manager in California and I would be happy to provide you with that contact information."

When I finally got home around 8:00 that night, my home phone rang and when I answered it a voice said, "Good evening this is Mary Jacobs from the Palm Beach Post is this Melanie Brenner?" I was cranky and tired and went off on poor Mary Jacobs saying how dare she call me at home and why couldn't the press just leave it alone? I was not nice and certainly my higher self was not in control of my actions. When I finally allowed Ms. Jacobs to speak, she said meekly, "M'am I'm sorry but I was just trying to sell you a subscription to the newspaper. " Click.

So thank you Burt Reynolds for bringing me some of my greatest friends and life lessons. You will be greatly missed.

Okay so there is an addendum to this story. When I originally wrote and posted this story to Facebook the day after his passing, I used ther famous photo from Playgirl magazine. Facebook blocked it for indecency - Seriously. Whatever.