They still love Burt 'The Bandit' Reynolds in Tampa

Burt Reynolds, arguably the biggest movie star to come out of Florida, charmed a packed house of adoring fans at the Tampa Theatre tonight at a special screening of his 1977 hit "Smokey and the Bandit."

In town to promote an upcoming Turner Classic Movies film festival, the 75-year-old actor shared memories of the late Elizabeth Taylor, calling her "an amazing woman, more beautiful than you can imagine ... with incredible violet eyes ... and a raucous, bawdy laugh."

He said Taylor, who died Wednesday at age 79, had once visited the set of a film he was making. He said he asked her whether she was "slumming" and she said, '"I heard that your sets are real fun."

Reynolds told her, "We have fun. The movie's no good but we have fun."

He also recalled the fun he had making the stunt-filled action comedy about a hotshot driver who outwits and outdrives a redneck sheriff on a cross country beer run.

He recounted how his then roommate, stuntman/director Hal Needham, came up with the idea for the film but had written "the worst script" he had ever read. He said they pulled the film off by getting people who could improvise -- Sally Field, Jerry Reed and Jackie Gleason. "And we never said one word that was written in that script," he noted.

Some fans stood in line all day to make sure they got to see Reynolds, who arrived at 6:30 p.m. to greet the crowd, sign a few autographs and pose for photographs in front of a restored Pontiac Trans Am, recalling the car that was featured in the film.

Mary and Jerry Lane, snowbirds in their 60s from Indiana, were first -- arriving at 10 a.m. Mary Lane said they gave up a Key West vacation to see Reynolds.

Shawn and Jessy Shelton, a young couple from Brandon, said they grew up watching replays of "Smokey and the Bandit" on TV. They put fake Burt Reynolds' moustaches on their boys Alexander, 5, and Ryder, 4, and daughter Brittney, 16. Before the night was over, Reynolds swapped cowboy hats with Ryder.

Another couple came down from Indiana and one woman brought her 1972 copy of the Reynolds nude centerfold in Cosmopolitan for Reynolds to sign.

Reynolds later told Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz during a question and answer session at the theater that he had some regrets about that famous pose, which may have cost him some serious roles.

The screening, which was free, is part of a 10-city road tour featuring vintage films and leading up to a Classic Film Festival in Hollywood April 28-May 1.

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