Actor and producer Burt Reynolds died Thursday at the age of 82. He was probably best known for his signature mustache and his roles in the films, Deliverance, Smokey and the Bandits, The Cannonball Run.
He was not well known for his time spent in Michigan. That fact was hidden for quite some time.
Reynolds used to say he was from Waycross, Georgia. It wasn’t until Reynolds’ released his 2015 autobiography that he mentioned he was born in Lansing.
Lansing librarian and historian, David Votta says he knew about Reynolds’ Lansing roots in 2011 thanks to an online debate.
“Someone with the local historical society was having a feud online with someone from Waycross, Georiga via Wikipedia about where he was born. So I started doing some research into it and pretty quickly was able to find a number of property records that cited his family to [Lansing] when he was born,” Votta says.
Votta says the Reynolds family lived on Donora Street, about two miles south of the state capital.
After hopping between Lansing, Missouri and Lake City, Michigan, Votta says the family eventually moved to Florida. That’s where Burt Reynolds spent much of his youth.
Reynolds said in his 2015 book that he “grew up a southern boy who didn’t want to be a Yankee.”
Votta points out that many of Reynolds’ films were set in the south, so it makes sense that he would identify as a southerner instead of from the Midwest.
Votta says he glad Reynolds’ finally admitted his birth city so that “Lansing can claim at least part of him.”
