Key Points
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Lesley-Anne Down starred with Burt Reynolds in the 1980 heist movie “Rough Cut.”
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The North and South actress says Burt Reynolds sought an extra “four inches or so” by wearing lifts.
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Down also reveals that Reynolds was “obsessed” with “three things”: “top, bottom, and middle.”
Burt Reynolds was not a short man, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t want to be taller.
Actress Lesley-Anne Down starred with Burt Reynolds in the 1980 heist movie Rough Cut, when he was fresh off of a series of appearances in blockbusters including Deliverance, Smokey and the Bandit, and Hooper. But being a top film star is all about maintaining an image and meeting the public’s expectations.
“I remember going for a walk, because we were in London when we were doing that film,” Down tells Entertainment Weekly in an exclusive interview. “I said, ‘Don’t put those on.'” She was referring to his boots that had heels and insoles that helped to raise his height (IMDb lists him at 6 feet tall). “I said, ‘No! Your feet will hurt so badly.'” Down was in a more comfortable pair of tennis shoes.
It appears Reynolds relented and came out of the clouds, at least for that walk.
“It was the first time I think I’d ever seen him and gone out and walked around or whatever when he was like normal height,” Down says. “He wasn’t a short man, but he wanted that extra, I guess, four inches or so.”
Down explains that height was one of Reynolds’ three primary concerns.
“Burt was so funny, wasn’t he?” Down recalls to EW. “Burt was just absolutely obsessed with three things: top, bottom, and middle. He was absolutely obsessed with all those weaves that he had in his head, and he was obsessed with the things that he put in his shoes to make him taller, and he was obsessed with his crotch.”
For what its worth, in a 1989 profile for TV Guide several years later, writer Pat Jordan noted, “He no longer wears lifts in his shoes, either, and probably never needed them, except in his mind’s eye.”
Looking back at her period as a leading lady in Hollywood, during which time she also appeared with Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, and Pierce Brosnan, Down admits it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“I think that, for a certain amount of time, I was able to give off something that made men certainly like me, not for very long. Because honestly, truly, did I enjoy it? Not really. Did I really think about it? Not at all.”
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Down appears in the movie Reagan as Margaret Thatcher. The director’s cut will re-release in theaters on Sept. 25, timed in conjunction with the United States’ 250th year of independence.
“Seriously, I don’t have anything about me that is even vaguely Margaret Thatcher. So for me to try to be her and do what other really great people — I don’t need to tell you who’s done this, we all know — but for me to try to be her and look like her or any of those things was really quite pathetic.”
As self-deprecating as she may be, Down says she hoped she captured the “spirit” of Thatcher for a “new generation of people” with her performance.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
