A look back at the actor’s 1972 Penthouse interview.

The death of Burt Reynolds on September 6 marked the end of an era, not only in American film but American masculinity. Since then, countless tributes have commemorated the actor’s legacy, but we decided to go back — way back — to the interview Reynolds did for this magazine in 1972, conducted by radio personality Fred Robbins, a close friend of the actor. At the time, Reynolds was appearing in the play The Rainmaker, and Deliverance had just hit theaters (though here there’s hardly mention of the film, which became a huge hit, and is still considered one of the best action movies of all time). Reynolds had also been guest hosting The Tonight Show for Johnny Carson, and, most notably, Cosmopolitan just published the now infamous photo of the actor lying naked on a bear skin rug.

Penthouse’s nine-page exposé painted a portrait of Reynolds, then 36, that people may no longer recognize — candid, virile, and full of confidence and excitement for a career that was about to explode. Here are our favorite naughty bits.

If the enthusiasm of the audience during your current tour of The Rainmaker is anything to go by, you seem to have experienced a new surge of popularity following your nude centerfold in Cosmopolitan.

Helen Gurley Brown is certainly the best business woman in the world. She printed 400,000 extra copies. Hell, if she’d known what was going to happen, she’d have printed two million extra copies. The reason it sold is that women have a lot better sense of humor than men give them credit for, and they’re tired of coming home and looking at Penthouse and Playboy pictures with all that cleavage and having the husband say, “Why the hell don’t you look like that, Martha?” — after they’ve had eight babies, you know. So it was a chance to take something and stick it in the husbands’ ears. Jesus, to be a part of that was a terrific fun thing. But it could have been a disaster. I could be playing to empty theaters right now.

A lot of women were disappointed that they didn’t see the whole thing.

Yeah. I got a lot of that, too. But I judged it by the way I judge photographs of women — to me, the sexiest thing is something that leaves a little to the imagination. Plus the fact that I wanted to be funny. And I’ve never found anything funny about a man’s cock.

Were you asked in the beginning to do it completely nude?

We tried both ways. They took a million pictures, and I’m sure, right now, in the underground in New York, there’s a lot of pictures circulating of me with everything hanging out. It was a cold day. I’m sorry they got those.

One female reaction was that the picture wasn’t exciting because it’s a soft picture — no athletic motion, with muscles stretched taut.

You and I both know that what turns you on may not turn me on, etc. I’m sure that’s just as true with women. A lot of women are turned on by fat chubby little guys. A lot of women are turned on by jocks. Very few are turned on by the Charles Atlas muscle-bound egg-shaped guy — mostly because most of them are so busy working on their bods, they never have time to work on their personalities. I think it’s sexier if it’s a face you recognize because then you fantasize all kinds of things. Open a magazine, and there’s Ursula Andress or Raquel Welch or somebody in her underwear — you think, “Gee, that’s terrific. Never saw her in her underwear before.” And then you can conjure up all kinds of things. Probably the most stimulating thing to guys is to see somebody who doesn’t do that kind of thing ordinarily, I would think. If I see Raquel, I’m really not that turned-on, but if I open up a magazine and see Carol Burnett — that would turn me on. If a woman thinks she’s sexy, she is.

Were you surprised by the wild letters you got?

I didn’t expect to get thousands… I also got thousands saying it was fun and terrific, and “I’m glad you did it and my whole family loves you, and my grandmother loves you and my husband loves you” — you know I even got one from a chick who’s on a roller derby team and has it in her locker. The freaks’ letters were what you would imagine some guy with a raincoat beating off would write to some chick — downright sex letters: “I want to fuck your brains out,” etc. Where do you go from there?… A lot of them sent Polaroids of themselves in the nude. One girl from Canada sent me pubic hair wrapped in wax paper.

Wasn’t there one who papered her wall with the centerfold?

Yeah, she called up from Chicago and asked for, I guess, 500 magazines. It ended up costing her $700. She papered her entire bedroom with them… I had a funny experience a few years ago with two girls named Franny and Zoey, still very good friends of mine, whom I ended up in the sack with after a telethon… I mentioned this sort of casually on the Tonight Show and I had a lot of letters signed “Franny and Zoey,” with photographs, too.

How many letters contained pubic hair?

Just the one. If it was ever mentioned on the air, I’m sure there’d be lots of bald broads.

You’ve been called the No. 1 sex symbol — Super Stud. Have you tried to analyze why you appeal to women?

First of all, I don’t think it’s true that I’m Super Stud. But I thank you. If I had to analyze why I think [women] are attracted to me, I would have to say it’s because most of them say to me, “I really don’t want to go to bed with that Cosmopolitan thing, I want to go to bed with you. You look sexy with your clothes on. I love your crazy personality.” I think it’s a related kind of attitude that women are attracted to.

The Playboy image of what a man should be I send up constantly. I mean, having a bunny decal on his glass says to me he ain’t gonna make out at all. If you have to go around saying “I am a stud,” then you ain’t. I think women are attracted to a guy who doesn’t wear big belt buckles and talk with a deep voice and smoke Marlboros and say, “I’m tough.” They want a guy who is going to treat them like a lady, and is going to respect them, and who likes women.

If it wasn’t you right now, which other guy would you say would fill the [sex symbol] image?

There are a lot of guys who would qualify, but who happen to be married, which makes it very difficult for them to go on a show and say the things that I say. Not that being married can stop you from being a sex symbol, because Paul Newman is married and he certainly is a sex symbol. Clint Eastwood, I think, probably could be because he has a tremendous sense of humor, as very few people know, mostly because Clint is a kind of recluse and prefers it that way. He’s a great-looking guy, a very physical guy — but he also happens to be very happily married and has just had a second baby.

Does it ever worry you that you might meet a chick who has seen the Cosmo thing and has fantasized all kinds of expectations that you’re now expected to live up to?

I’ve never worried about something like that. It’s probably one of the plusses for going out with starlets. They’re hoping for a three-star rating, so they [screw] your brains out. Knowing Hollywood, the way it is — everybody thinks everybody knows what everybody else is doing, so God knows you don’t want to be called a bad lay. If some chick had fantasized something about me, I think she would be terrific in the sack, just by the mere fact that she had fantasized about it.

How do you react toward the nudism trend in general?

I am not turned-on, quite honestly, by the nude look. To me, there is still nothing more sexy than a great-looking broad in underwear. Also, I like to see a chick fully dressed but in one of those blouses where you can just see the nipples. That’s very sexy, but not if she’s got size 48s and the nipple is right around her bellybutton…

As far as society is concerned — society is going to go as far as we let it go. You can get some very nice, polite people in a room… and all of a sudden these people turn into animals. I don’t want to be involved in a situation where every night you go to somebody’s house and jump everybody’s bones. That’s not my idea of a lot of fun. I enjoy the hunt.

Are we in the U.S. catching up with other countries in permissiveness?

No, we’re not anywhere near Denmark in terms of pornography — nor Amsterdam, which is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but has a great red-light district. If we had a great red-light district in New York it would make it possible to walk down Sixth Avenue without getting tripped every other store. I think we’ve got to be able to have pornography in one specified section of town. A lot of freaks run over there and get those magazines, run home and jack off, and then they don’t attack anybody. It seems to me that that would release a little pressure.

There has been pornography around ever since I can remember — playing cards and those funny little Dick Tracy magazines. The problem is that it’s done in such bad taste. I think you can just about do anything, if you do it with taste. If you walk down a street with your kid and there’s some broad holding her tits in a guy’s mouth, that’s not too cool. Your kid’s nine years old and he says: “What is she feeding him, Daddy?” Why not have a store where it just says what it is on the outside and that’s all, and all the goods are hidden inside?

Similar to the shops in Hamburg, Germany — which are like markets, and you can go in and buy whatever you want with no sweat?

And the women don’t give you that funny look when you buy them, either. “What would you like, sir? 19-inch vibrator? Wonderful.”

What’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever done?

Probably the sexiest moment I’ve ever had was when I met a lady I’ve never seen since. I was on a ship, on a cruise, to Ensenada — and no one was paying any attention to her, probably because she had the biggest breasts I’ve ever seen in my life. They were so big that they intimidated everyone. Also, she had a belligerent attitude to everyone. She was about six feet tall — incredible-looking broad… She was reading something like Milton’s Paradise Lost, sitting on this sun deck, and I happened to look over at her, and she dropped her leg, and she had no underwear on. She was reading this very heady book but looking over the top of the book at me… So I walked over and sat down and said: “Any woman that looks like you and has a body like yours has heard every line that’s ever been said, so I’m just going to say it straight out… I want to fuck your brains out.” She said: “What took you so long?” And she closed the book and we left and we never came out of that room for 48 hours. I never saw her again but that is one of the things in my life that I’ll remember always. She was a teacher at a college, but she wouldn’t tell me which one. In the room she said: “Look, I don’t want to know your name. I don’t want you to know mine. This is strictly physical.” And of course, it ended up not being, because we talked about so many things, got into so many areas. I’ve often wondered if she ever sees me on television.

You’re a Penthouse subscriber, aren’t you? What do you like about it?

It’s much more honest than Playboy. It is a magazine totally devoted to studs, and it doesn’t try to be anything else. It has a fun kind of crazy, English sense of humor about it — which I think is the best sense of humor in the world. They were the first ones to have pubic hair, and it was so ridiculous not to before. I personally don’t think it’s as sexy as seeing pubic hair behind a pair of pants, but that is my own fetish. I just found the magazine to be… pardon the pun, beautifully laid out. Penthouse girls just look like they think their bodies are so beautiful… I don’t know whether the photographer happens to be a freak like me, or just happens to get the right girls, but that’s the right idea.