Everything that follows, happened.
1
The Bad and the Ugly
February 2, 1975. 10:35pm
“Hey, you know who lives in that house up there?”
“Who?”
“Burt Reynolds, the actor,” the drug pusher says.
That information really gets the 32-year-old, muscular man’s attention. “Oh, yeah?” Vaughn Greenwood says as he shoves his just bought drugs into his pocket and hands over his grimy twenty-dollar bills. “That football movie. Right?”
“Yeah. And that canoe movie, too,” the pusher adds. “Big hits.”
“Maybe I’ll pay him a visit,” Greenwood says.
“Yeah, whatever,” the pusher says. “Stay cool, brother. You know how to find me when your stash runs out.”
“Yeah, sure,” Greenwood says keeping his eye on Reynold’s house that’s up a hill amongst other homes.
The dealer and his backup man walk off leaving Greenwood, who already has eleven killings under his belt, contemplating the movie star’s home. Should I go back to my run-down house, he thinks, pick up my machete and come back to this star’s nice house and show him who’s the better man?
Yes, I will, Greenwood decides and heads for Skid Row which covers fifty city blocks in east-central Los Angeles. It’s a long walk there, and back, but Greenwood knows it’ll be worth the trek.
He returns to Reynold’s neighborhood just before midnight, machete in hand. He goes around back and climbs the dirt hill that leads to Reynold’s home. Breaking a window, he enters. Greenwood is ready to slash Reynolds or whoever else might be there. He isn’t known as the Skid Row Slasher for nothing.
The small lamp that’s on in the large living room gives The Slasher a view of the Western art on display: panoramas, bronzes, carvings, and portraits of the long dead that tamed the west.
Finding his way to the bedroom where he hopes to find a sleeping Reynolds, The Slasher hesitates as he hears a soft gurgling sound coming from there. He approaches slowly with his machete raised. He notices the bedroom is bathed in a soft blue light.
Entering the bedroom, he sees the light and the sound are coming from a fish aquarium that faces the large bed. He lowers his machete in disappointment seeing that Reynold’s resting place won’t be his place of rest.
A friend once told Burt that the aquarium in his bedroom must have the most entertained fish in the world. If The Slasher has his way tonight, they’ll be the most horrified fish in the world.
The movie star has to come home sometime tonight, The Slasher thinks. I’ll just hide and wait it out. When he’s a sleep, he’ll be an easy target.
He opens the large closet door, finds the light switch inside, and turns it on. In the long row of clothes The Slasher eyes the Holy Grail of many film fans. The hat and serape that Clint Eastwood wore in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Does The Slasher know that movie or costume? Whether he does or not, he immediately fancies it and puts the serape over his huge neck and shoulders which he earned from years of prison weightlifting. Then he dons the hat, making him bad and ugly, and far from good.
Sliding open a small drawer he finds another nice souvenir of his upcoming killing and takes it. Then he switches off the light, slowly closes the closet door and stands in the darkness, gripping his machete tightly.
Will that movie star prick be asleep when I strike him? The Slasher gleefully wonders. Will he live long enough to see it’s somebody wearing his clothes that’s killing him?
And then he thinks, I wonder if he’ll have his shoes by the bed or if I’ll have to search for them.
Events that started three years earlier, would result in Burt’s deliverance from the Skid Row Slasher.
2
Burt and Miko
Three Years Earlier – March 15, 1972
“Wake up, Doc,” Miko Mayama says, gently shaking the sleeping Burt Reynolds. Because she learned English by watching cartoons, What’s up, Doc? was the first words she had said to Burt when they first met in Japan four years earlier. Sometimes she calls him Doc to conjure up happy memories.
“What?” Burt groans, rolling over onto his back to see his beautiful live-in girlfriend smiling down on him.
“You’re due at the studio in two hours. How about some breakfast?”
“Oh, yeah,” Burt remembers. “Dinah’s Place or whatever it’s called.”
The 32-year-old Burt first met the 29-year-old Miko when he was on his way to the Philippines to star in the treasure hunt movie Impasse. During his week layover in Japan, he saw a Takarazuka Revue show. An all-women, lavish, Broadway-style production of singing and dancing. Watching the forty women perform, one of them stood out from the rest: Miko.
Burt was thunderstruck by her flawless face, waist-length black hair, and voluptuous figure. After meeting Miko backstage, her throaty, sultry voice completed the allure.
They saw each other every night that week. Though Miko’s English was limited, Burt made it clear that he wanted to take her to America after finishing his movie. Using Miko’s brother as an interpreter, Burt had a hard time getting Miko’s parents’ permission. He made a lot of promises and was sincere about keeping them. Finally, they agreed.
Burt got Miko a part in Impasse. After finishing it, they flew to America. “I plan to spend the rest of my life with Miko,” Burt told his friends.
Burt’s Police Chief father spent three years in Japan after being a hero on Normandy Beach during World War ll. So Burt didn’t think he’d have a problem taking his new love to Florida to meet his parents. The first thing his father said when he saw Burt with Miko was, “What are you going to do, open a restaurant?”
Burt was furious. He grabbed Miko and left. Now, though four years have passed, Miko’s wedding finger is still naked.
“Why did you decide to do Dinah’s show?” Miko asks, as Burt gets slowly out of bed.
“Why not?”
“Well, after that nude centerfold you did that you say cost you the Oscar for Deliver …”
“Don’t rub it in.”
“You said you wanted to cut down on interviews.”
Burt stands up and stretches. “Well, I kept hearing that Dinah wants me. And they lured me in by saying I can do a stunt for my entrance.”
Miko hands him a shirt. “A stunt on a talk show?”
“Yeah. That should make an impression on daytime audiences.”
“Isn’t that too risky for just a talk show?”
“I’ve done stunts on lousy movies with less of an audience than Dinah’s got.”
“Well,” she shrugs. “Better wear some pads.”
“Nah. I’ll be alright.”
3
Closeted Freak
Vaughn Orrin Greenwood had killed two men in 1966 but got clean away before the bodies were discovered. He attempted to kill another man, was caught in the act, and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released in 1974, while Burt Reynolds was in Georgia State Prison filming The Longest Yard.
Immediately upon his release, Greenwood claimed his third victim, a 46-year-old alcoholic drifter, on the same spot he had killed his first victim a decade earlier.
Now standing in the darkness of Burt Reynold’s closet, Greenwood The Slasher contemplates the pile of eleven bodies he’s left in his wake, hoping … knowing that Reynolds would make a nice movie-star cherry on top of an even dozen-body-sundae.
He squeezes his machete to keep his mind on the purpose. The friendless freak who considers himself an artist, painting pictures in blood, is now ready to hang his own Rembrandt.
4
A Wonderful Guy
“What are you doing up there?” singer Dinah Shore, 23 years his senior, asks Burt. He’s standing on the kitchen counter of her daily television show set.
“I’m gonna come to you.” With a pre-arranged drum-roll, Burt hurls himself off the counter, diving onto a small table that breaks almost sliding into Dinah’s ankle. The set shakes so hard it dislodges a large painting off the wall.
“Burt, Burt,” Dinah calls out as she quickly kneels next to him on the floor. “Are you alright?”
Later in the show, Burt starts demonstrating on Dinah the ‘certain point on the hand’ when massaged, relaxes you. His touch makes Dinah unable to get her words out correctly. “When the hus … husband comes home from the off … office … when he … Oh,” she sighs and then breaks into song, “I’m in love, I’m in love with a wonderful guy.”
At the end of the show Burt tells her, “I’d like to take you off to Palm Springs possibly for … you know …”
“How long?”
“… to get acquainted.”
“Oh, really?” she says looking at him. “Now?”
“Well, after the show …”
“Well, goodbye folks,” Dinah says obviously shaken as she looks back at the camera. “I hope you enjoyed our show today.” She blows a kiss to the audience as Burt keeps his eyes on her and makes a devilish smirk.
They do go to Palm Springs for the Dinah Shore Golf Tournament. Dinah plays. Burt carries her clubs. They both know they’re in love, but they don’t want to rush it.
Burt later said, “We were both from the south, loved sports and in all our time together, we never had a fight.”
Burt follows her from city to city on her golf tour. Finally, he has to go to Chicago to do a play. That night, from the stage, Burt looks out into the audience and is surprised to see Dinah. That same night, she invites him to her hotel room.
Burt later said, “For the first time, I was sharing intimacy with my heart full of genuine, unconditional love. I not only loved Dinah, I admired her. I never felt that way about a woman before.”
5
Out of the Closet
In the darkness of Burt’s closet, The Slasher is getting impatient. He’s been standing here for an hour or more waiting for his bloodlust to be satisfied, his machete’s thirst to be quenched.
Enough of this, he thinks. What if that prick movie star never comes home tonight? There must be easier pickings.
He opens the closet door and walks out of the bedroom, still on guard in case Reynolds has returned. But there’s not a light on, not a sound.
The Slasher heads up the hill to another home to take out his frustration on whoever he might find there. It’s been a long night. He can’t return home with a bloodless machete.
6
Record Albums
“Miko, I have to talk with you,” Burt says entering his home, travel bag slung over his shoulder.
“Oh?” Miko says, as she approaches him in the living room. “Did something happen? Are you alright?”
“No … yes … I’m okay,” he relaxes his voice a little as he sets down his bag. “Sorry for the bad entrance. I’m just not good at stuff like this.”
“What is it, Burt?”
“I want to go over some things with you, darling. And I’m afraid it’s going to be a little rough.”
“Did I do something?”
“No, no. You’re fine.”
She sits down on the cowhide sofa. “Then, what is it?”
Burt sits next to her but keeps a space between them. “These last two weeks of traveling and then acting in the play … well … I haven’t been alone.”
“I never ask about those things,” she says quietly.
“I know, Miko. And I’ve always appreciated that.” He takes a deep breath. “But this time I was with Dinah.”
“Dinah Shore?” she asks. “But she’s … I mean …”
Burt gives her time to finish, but she doesn’t. So he says, “I mean, I wasn’t exactly ‘with her’, just kind of hanging around … not until recently … But we were together … you know.”
“Ah … No I don’t exactly … But … maybe …”
“Yeah … Now things have gotten a little serious, and I think I’d like to … I guess I’d like to pursue that relationship.”
“Oh,” Miko says gently. “But we spoke of marriage.”
“I know we did, darling. I don’t want to hurt you, but I think that’s not possible now.”
She looks down at the floor. “So what do we do now? I mean, what do you want me to do?”
Burt leans back on the sofa. “Well, I think it’s best in a couple of days that you … you know … slowly find another place and … move out.”
“I guess,” she says sadly, but stays composed.
“But you can take whatever you want. I want us to remain friends and …”
“Remain friends?”
“At least not enemies.
“Yes.”
“So take anything you want when you leave.”
They don’t speak for half a minute, nor look at each other. Then she says, “Well, I’d like you to pay for an apartment for me. And also, please give me some expense money for a while to tide me over between acting jobs.”
Burt sits up slowly, slightly perplexed, and then chuckles. “Oh … I thought you might just want some record albums.”
Miko doesn’t know if he’s serious or joking. She doesn’t react. This was six years before actor Lee Marvin was sued by his live-in girlfriend of three years for what would become known as Palimony.
“Well, okay,” Burt finally says. “I guess that’s fair … considering.”
“Also,” Miko continues demurely, “I’d like a car.”
“A car? Okay … Sure.”
“A Cadillac convertible.”
“Well … I guess,” Burt nods several times. “Okay … That’s fine.”
“Good … Thank you.”
“So … ah … what kind of money are you thinking about?”
She tilts her head in thought. “How about … you know … maybe $500 a week for two years?”
“Hmm … I can do that.”
“And make that an apartment near the beach in Santa Monica or Malibu … if you can.”
“Okay. Near the ocean it is. Anything else?”
“No, that’s fine.”
“And what record albums do you want?” Burt chuckles.
“Come on, Burt,” she controls a smile. “This is sad.”
“Yeah, I know.”
7
Night of the Slasher
February 3, 1975. 1:20am
Coming from Burt’s house, The Slasher forces open the back door of the house next to it. Inside, he encounters the owner, Clyde Hays and his house guest Kenneth Richer. Though late at night, they’re in the living room having a relaxed conversation with wine glasses and a few plates of food on the coffee table. They jump to their feet as The Slasher charges Hays who’s closest to him.
The first chop of the machete cuts off Hays’ scream, the second chop, his life. In an instinctive action to survive, Richer grabs The Slasher around the waist. As The Slasher chops him several times in the back, Richer, screaming, pushes him into the window, shattering it as they both fall through it to the ground below. The Slasher stands, takes a final chop at Richer, and then limps off into the darkness.
Minutes later, he’s awakened by a scraping sound in his bedroom. He sits up and looks down to see Richer crawling toward him on the floor. He’s covered in blood, and so injured that he can’t speak.
Burt jumps to his feet to call for an ambulance. As he grabs the phone, he looks out the bedroom door into his living room. Standing 20 feet away from him, wearing the Clint Eastwood hat and serape, is The Slasher, bloody machete in hand. He stares at Burt. Burt, momentarily frozen, stares back. They are locked together, movie star and monster.
To Burt, The Slasher looks like a psycho-killer in a badly cast movie: a character actor too much in character to be believed.
Burt slams the bedroom door shut and begins looking for a weapon: a bottle, a knife, anything. Unfortunately, Lewis Medlock’s Deliverance bow and arrow is in storage. So there will be no ‘center shot’ for this intruder.
Hearing heavy footsteps walking off and the back door slam open, Burt figures The Slasher has gone. He makes the phone call and soon the police helicopters start circling noisily above him. Then comes the ambulance and police cars sirens.
Richer is taken to the hospital and survives.
And The Slasher? He slid down the back hill and escaped. Burt has escaped too … from death. Deliverance, just a few years after being delivered from B movies via Deliverance.
8
The Deadly Note Pad
The next day, Burt flies off to Nashville to make W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings. The day after that, he gets a call from the Los Angeles police. “We got him,” the detective says.
“What?” Burt replies.
“We’ve got the Skid Row Slasher. When he slid down the hill behind your house, an envelope of food stamps addressed to him came out of his pocket. We traced it to his house and got him.”
“Thank God,” Burt says. “I don’t want him on the loose and visiting my place again.”
“Would you mind, flying back and identifying him? It would make it a lot easier putting this guy away.”
“Sure. No problem,” Burt says.
Arriving at the Los Angeles Police Station, the detective takes Burt into the bowels of the basement. “So you’re sure you saw the guy clearly?” the detective asks as they walk.
“Yeah, sure,” Burt says. “I looked right into his eyes.”
“Now when you enter the room, don’t look away from him. Look right at him. Don’t be intimidated.”
“I’m not going to be intimidated,” Burt says. “Don’t worry about it.”
They enter a concrete-walled room where The Slasher sits in handcuffs and shackles. He’s guarded by two large policemen, though not as large as The Slasher, who looks up as Burt and the detective enter. Seeing Burt, The Slasher gives him a big smile, as if to say, Just try to identify me and see what happens.
Unintimidated, Burt smiles back.
Later, Burt would say, “He was so big and mean looking that if O.J. Simpson read for The Slasher’s part in a movie, he’d be too weak.”
Also seated in the room are a public defender, representing The Slasher, and a judge wearing his black robe.
As he stares at Burt, The Slasher is continuously writing something down on a pad of paper, but he keeps his eyes on Burt as he writes. Then The Slasher stops smiling and narrows his eyes as if to say, I’ll get you sooner or later, movie star prick.
The public defender stands and asks Burt, “Do you know who this is?” pointing to The Slasher.
“Yeah,” Burt says casually. “That’s the guy in my house with the machete.”
The defender approaches Burt. “How can you say for sure?”
“Because I saw him, and he has my clothes on.”
“What do you mean your clothes?”
“That’s my serape that Clint Eastwood gave me from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. And there’s a cleaning slip inside it with my name on it.”
The judge motions to one of the policemen who turns over the serape. Pinned to the back of it is a small piece of paper that reads: REYO, the cleaners special mark for Reynolds.
The judge looks at it and says, “Hmm … okay.”
All this time, The Slasher is staring at Burt. Without looking down at his pad, he continues writing and writing.
The judge says to Burt, “You’re an actor, aren’t you?”
Burt smirks and says, “Well, the jury’s still out on that.”
“This is not The Tonight Show, Mr. Reynolds,” the judge says. “Just answer the question.”
“Yes, your honor,” Burt says, changing his tone. “And I also would like to point out that he’s wearing my I.D bracelet.” I nailed him, Burt thinks.
“Okay,” Mr. Reynold’s,” the judge says. “That’ll be all for now. Thank you for coming in.”
“No problem, your honor,” Burt says standing up. As he passes by The Slasher, Burt looks down at the pad that he continues to write on. He sees, written about 50 times: Kill Burt Reynolds, Kill Burt Reynolds, Kill Burt Reynolds.
9
Deliverance
The Slasher was convicted on nine counts of murder and sentenced to 32 years to life in prison. The judge recommended that he never be released because: “His presence in any community would constitute a menace.”
So they could positively identify the Skid Row Slasher, once he was found, the police held back one fact from the press: The Slasher always took off the shoes of his dead victims and pointed them at each side of his head.
Years later, on a reunion TV show, Burt said to Dinah Shore, “If I hadn’t been with you that night, I would have come home probably at nine. The guy would have been there, and I’d be lying on my bedroom floor right now with my shoes pointed at my head. And my obituary would have said, ‘His only good movie was The Wild One’, which I wasn’t even in, because they often confused me with Marlon Brando.”
“But you made Deliverance by then,” Dinah said.
“Yeah, that’s true,” Burt agreed.
“That’s one of my favorite movies of all time. You should have gotten the Academy Award for that.”
“Thank you,” Burt said. “And thank God for Deliverance. I waited 15 years to do a really good movie. I made many bad pictures in the past because I was never able to turn anyone down. And I found out that the greatest curse in Hollywood is to be a well-known unknown.”
After four years, Burt wanted to marry Dinah, but she refused, so though they remained devoted friends, they ended their close relationship.
A year later, Burt told friends, “Breaking up with Dinah was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I knew it was time to get married or move on, and she refused to marry me. And also, I had to admit to myself that I wanted a child, and in that respect, our 23-year age difference was a factor. Dinah knew that as well.”
On that reunion show, Burt told Dinah, “If I have any class in my life and my career, you gave it to me.”
Dinah emotionally replied, “You gave me confidence as a woman.”
In 2018, the year he passed, Burt said, “My biggest regret is parting ways with Dinah; it was so stupid of me. We were soulmates … I was so lucky to have had someone like her in my life. She was so young of heart and spirit in every way.”
In her 50 years in show business, Dinah was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, had a dozen gold records, won 10 Emmys and a Golden Globe. She was most proud of her Peabody Award for excellence in storytelling.
After Dinah died, Burt visited her grave every February, her birth month.
Burt’s ex-girlfriend, Miko Mayama, went on to make 29 movie and TV appearances. Playing Charlton Heston’s mistress in The Hawaiians, she steals the show with her nude descent into a hot tub. Heston, already in the tub, eyes her with nearly the same expression he had when he first laid eyes on the mounted apes.
“My name is Fumiko,” she says to Heston. “I can speak English.”
“Fumiko,” he replies. “You don’t have to.”
Exactly one day before the two years of Burt’s payments were up, Miko married Barbra Streisand’s manager. Ironically, Burt’s breakup with Miko probably saved her life, as she would have most likely been at Burt’s house that horrific night.
Burt made the movie City Heat with Clint Eastwood. According to Burt, early in their careers, his and Eastwood’s Universal Studio contracts were terminated on the same day. A studio executive said: “Clint Eastwood’s Adam’s-apple is too large, and Burt Reynolds can’t act.“
On the way to their cars in the Universal parking lot, Burt said to Clint, “I can always learn to act. But you’ll never get rid of that damned Adam’s apple.”
Burt has 186 TV and movie credits including four TV series: Riverboat, Gunsmoke, Hawk and Dan August.
Director James Brooks offered Burt the astronaut role in Terms of Endearment, but he turned it down to make yet another action-comedy movie: Stroker Ace. Jack Nicholson won the academy Award for the astronaut role.
Burt said, “I owed my director friend Hal Needham a lot in my life, so I did his movie Stroker Ace instead of Terms of Endearment. My career never recovered from that. That’s when I lost my fans.”
Burt ranked #1 box office star, five years in a row, from 1978 to 1982. The only other actors to rank #1 for five years are: Bing Crosby, Shirley Temple, Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood, and Tom Cruise, who has seven years to his credit.
The movie Deliverance put Burt on top. His character of the macho Lewis Medlock still impresses to this day.
He was at the table-read for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood playing the part of George Spawn. Burt’s son Quinton said, “Dad was studying his lines for the movie when he died.”
Two years before that, Burt said, “I made a lot of movies, made big money, and then I went bankrupt … but I sure had a lot of fun.”
*** END ***
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Paul Kyriazi 