who played bandit in smokey and the bandit movies

But Smokey and the Bandit codified Reynolds as a specific type of good-old-boy superstar. Certainly, Burt Reynolds was the film’s major selling point, Reynolds had already cemented both his auto racing and southern action star cred in films like White Lightning and its sequel Gator, and W.W. (Only Star Wars beat it, with Smokey taking in $126 million to Star Wars’ record-breaking $221 million.) Opening first in New York, the modestly budgeted ($4.3 million) picture started slowly, but, on the back of a regional rollout through the south, gained enough traction to wind up as the year’s second-highest-grossing film. Technically following the then-popular movie trend centered on fast cars and incomprehensible trucker lingo shouted into CB radios, Smokey and the Bandit truly shifted the genre into high gear, ushering in several years of squealing tires and smashing police cars emanating from drive-in speakers. Essentially, Bandit, after getting the Burdettes to peel off thousands of dollars from the wad of hundreds in Little Enos’ pocket, will tear-ass in the vicinity of Cledus’ speeding 18-wheeler in his newly purchased black Pontiac Trans-Am, attracting police attention and leaving Cledus free to steam his illicit cargo straight through to Georgia.

Bandit himself will be driving “blocker,” another of the film’s conceits viewers (most of whom are not prone to high-speed pursuits) are tasked with putting together from context. The story, written on legal pads by Reynolds’ friend, the former stuntman turned director Hal Needham, is essentially just that, as Bandit cajoles his truck-driving pal Cledus (singer Jerry Reed, rattling on as one of cinema’s best sidekicks) to drive Bandit’s big rig. Played by Pat McCormack (Big Enos) and singer-songwriter Paul Williams (Little Enos), the Burdettes are the first of the film’s raft of broadly drawn southern stereotypes, as they persuade Burt Reynolds’ local celebrity trucker the Bandit (real name Bo Darville, as pieced together from isolated lines in the film) to accept their wager of a whopping $80,000 if he can complete the 28-hour round trip from Texas.

Who played bandit in smokey and the bandit movies