Young celebrity
By the time Sally Field and Burt Reynolds met in the mid-1970s, she had already made a name for herself at the entertainment industry with breakthrough roles in Sybil and the cult classics The Flying Nun and Gidget. Therefore, the lively Field was an improbable companion for the rugged Reynolds.
Reputation of Burt Reynolds
Additionally, Reynolds’s time on television was unlike anything else that had been done before or since. His early performances in popular TV dramas like Gunsmoke, Hawk, and Dan August catapulted him to stardom. Nonetheless, by 1976, Reynolds had accumulated enough box office success to demand a cool $1 million for his role in Smokey and the Bandit.