Is Burt Reynolds and his legacy slowly becoming forgotten?

I doubt most of the older movies will ever be embraced by the masses in the future. The pacing of older films is simply too slow to keep someone interest when they have the attention span of a gnat. MTV and music videos created a super quick pacing that has become engrained in cinema now so that when you have any movie that has slower pacing closer to the way it once was you get box office bombs and films that only show in art house theaters.

They're missing out on a ton of good stuff from people like Burt, Charles Bronson, Oliver Reed, Michael Caine, James Coburn, Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Sean Connery.

This. Generation x was the last gen that would watch stuff 40 years before their time. Generations after may go back 20 or 25 years. Maybe 30 to watch films like T2 that has a lot of sfx. But they won't watch black and white films or slower paced as you say. It's not wholly their fault. They were all raised on the Internet. When the internet went live in 1996 that was the beginning of the end.

I'm starting to think that every star who made a movie before 1990 is forgotten to a new generation.

Here's some history:

In the early 1960s, movies on television were rather "restricted to being from the long ago past." Warner Brothers only sold its movies "pre-1949" to TV ...mainly on local channels, not network.

So adults AND kids watching movies on TV in the early 60's got a steady diet of stars from decades before -- Bogart, Cagney, Bette Davis...

As the 60's moved on, movies from the EARLY 60's finally started to make it to TV.

Also , there were far fewer channels to watch; far fewer movies shown.

Cut to 2022: Movies are on TV within months...or WEEKS of being in theaters. And some "stream" at the same time as going to theaters (yeah, COVID did it, but it was already starting.) Viewers are FLOODED with movies starring "the stars of today" and pre-1990 movies tend to get tossed away to streaming screens that you have to SEEK out.

As for Burt Reynolds, he was a TV star AT THE SAME TIME he was making Deliverance (he had a cop show called Dan August) and his full-on movie stardom was actually rather short in duration: Deliverance, White Lightning, The Longest Yard. Smokey and the Bandit actually SAVED him after starring in some big bombs -- At Long Last Love and Nickelodeon(both for Peter Bogdanovich, who went from hot to not in a couple of years) and Lucky Lady(with a most un-gorgeous Liza Minnelli trying to play a gorgeous dame.)

Anyway, for those who go looking, they'll find Burt being good and tough in Deliverance, and funny and tough in The Longest Yard, and REALLY funny and not so tough in Smokey and the Bandit. He also did a pretty good Cary Grant as an NFL player in Semi-Tough. He did a "New York dramedy" called Starting Over for the man who would make Terms of Endearment, but its not really a fine film.

And that's about it.

CONT

But here's the difference...you knew who Clark Gable was. Most People 30 and younger do not who Burt Reynolds is. Or Paul Newman...lol

Yeah I agree. "THe Last Movie Star" was a decent film and he was good in it. His last hurrah I suppose.

He managed to maintain starring careers in both movies and tv simultaneously, as well as frequently being a very popular guest on talk shows, which used to appeal to everyone. He made a big impression that I don't think will disappear.