Hollywood screen legend Burt Reynolds has died at the age of 82 from a heart attack.
A heartbreaking emergency call has revealed the desperate fight to keep Burt Reynolds alive before he died of a heart attack on Thursday, age 82.
On the recording, male voice asks a dispatcher to send an ambulance to the actor's estate, the Daily Mail reported.
"He is having difficulty breathing and chest pains," the caller says. When asked if Reynolds was awake, the man replies, "semi... he's breathing, but not answering questions".
Burt Reynolds, right, holds hands with Loni Anderson in 1987. Photo / Getty Images
The dispatcher then runs through a list of questions, including whether the star is having cold sweats, to which the caller replies, "yes". After the caller is asked if Reynolds' had ever had a heart attack, he replies, "he had a bypass a few years ago".
The operator then reassures the caller, whose name is not known, that paramedics had been sent out, according to the recording obtained by TMZ.
Reynolds went into cardiac arrest and died at Jupiter Medical in Florida on Thursday morning (US time), surrounded by his family.
He was best known for his roles in 1972's Deliverance, 1977's Smokey and the Bandit, and 1997's Boogie Nights - the last of which earned him an Oscar nomination.
He was also filming Quentin Tarantino's new movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood alongside Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio at the time of his death. The film is expected to hit theatres in 2019.
Reynolds' ex girlfriend, and the "one that got away" Sally Field, 71, paid tribute to the Hollywood legend.
"There are times in your life that are so indelible, they never fade away," she said. "They stay alive, even forty years later.
Reynolds and Sally Field in Smokey and the Bandit. Photo / Getty Images
"My years with Burt never leave my mind. He will be in my history and my heart, for as long as I live. Rest, Buddy."
Burt Reynolds was one of my heroes. He was a trailblazer. He showed the way to transition from being an athlete to being the highest paid actor, and he always inspired me. He also had a great sense of humor - check out his Tonight Show clips. My thoughts are with his family.
“I’d love to slug ya but there are ladies present.” That’s how #BurtReynolds greeted me the first time I met him, while covering the Western-themed Golden Boot Awards for Entertainment Tonight in the early 1980s...Remembering Burt Reynolds--Truthfully https://t.co/Um33lUVFvipic.twitter.com/52gt9G0jyx
Ex-wife Loni Anderson and son Quinton said they will "miss" the late actor and "his great laugh."
They said to Fox News: "Quinton and I are extremely touched by the tremendous outpouring of love and support from friends and family throughout the world.
"Burt was a wonderful director and actor. He was a big part of my life for twelve years and Quinton's father for thirty years. We will miss him and his great laugh."
Tributes have also been pouring in from other co-stars, celebrities and fans including Goldie Hawn, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Elijah Wood.
Reynolds had been battling health issues for some time.
In 2013, he was hospitalised and placed in intensive care for flu-like symptoms and dehydration.
Two years earlier, the actor underwent heart surgery after his doctor found his arteries were closed during a routine physical.
"My doctor said I needed to undergo bypass surgery immediately," he told People at the time. "I went home and shaved then had the operation the next day."
His manager told CNN after the op that Reynolds "has a great motor with brand new pipes."
In September 2009, Reynolds checked into rehab for an addiction to prescription drugs.
Reynolds, known for his manly swagger, and was something of a 1970s sex symbol after rising to prominence on TV shows Gunsmoke and Dan August.
With his trademark moustache, rugged looks and macho aura, he was a leading male sex symbol of the 1970s. He appeared naked - reclining on a bearskin rug with his arm strategically positioned for the sake of modesty - in a centerfold in the women's magazine Cosmopolitan in 1972.
His first big movie breakout role was as Lewis Medlock in box office hit Deliverance in 1972.
He followed it up with one success after another, in box office hits The Longest YardSmokey and the Bandit, Hooper, The Cannonball Run and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Reynolds in Deliverance. Photo / Getty Images
At the peak of his career, Reynolds was one of the most bankable actors in the film industry, until a career downturn in the mid-1980s, when he returned to TV in sitcom Evening Shade.
He rebounded in 1997 with a nomination for a best supporting actor Academy Award for Boogie Nights and won an Emmy Award for his role in the 1990-1994 TV series Evening Shade.
Last year, he received critical acclaim for his performance in the indie movie The Last Movie Star.
Reynolds' personal life sometimes overshadowed his movies, with marriages that ended in divorce to actresses Anderson and Judy Carne and romances with the likes of Dinah Shore.
He has one adult son, Quinton Anderson Reynolds, from his second marriage.
The star described the love of his life as ex-girlfriend Sally Field, whom he dated on-off for five years in the '70s and '80s after she starred across him in Smokey and the Bandit.
Reynolds also generated attention for financial woes and his struggles with prescription pain medication.
Reynolds cited director John Boorman's Oscar-nominated 1972 Deliverance as his best film and said he regretted that the hoopla from his Cosmopolitan appearance detracted from the movie that made him a star. He played tough-guy Lewis Medlock - opposite Jon Voight, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox - in the chilling tale of a canoe trip gone bad in rural Georgia.
Many of his films were set in the South. He often played a lovable rascal who outwits local authorities as in director Hal Needham's 1977 crowd-pleasing action comedy Smokey and the Bandit, co-starring Field and Jackie Gleason, and its two sequels.
Another of his better roles was that of former a pro quarterback who lands in prison and assembles a team of convicts to play the warden's squad of brutal prison guards in 1974's rollicking The Longest Yard, directed by Robert Aldrich. He appeared in a supporting role 2005's remake with Adam Sandler.
Reynolds also directed several movies in which he starred, including Gator (1976), The End (1978), Sharky's Machine (1981) and Stick (1985).
While some of his performances were critically praised, others were ridiculed, particularly in the bloated action comedy Cannonball Run II, a sequel to his financial success The Cannonball Run (1981). He also starred in the notorious 1975 musical flop At Long Last Love, a film so atrocious that director Peter Bogdanovich publicly apologized for making it.
Reynolds turned down notable roles including Han Solo in Star Wars, which went to Harrison Ford; the title role in a James Bond film; and the astronaut in Terms of Endearment that Jack Nicholson turned into an Oscar-winning performance.
Reynolds said in 2012 that he regretted some of his film choices. "I took the part that was the most fun - 'Oh, this will be fun.' I didn't take the part that would be the most challenging," told television interviewer Piers Morgan in 2012.
Asked to come up with his own epitaph, Reynolds said, "He lived a hell of a life, and did his best - his very best - not to hurt anybody."
Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. was born on Feb. 11, 1936, and grew up in Florida. He was a fine athlete and played football at Florida State University in the 1950s before his professional football hopes were dashed by injuries suffered in a car crash.
He began acting after enrolling in a junior college. He moved to New York and landed minor stage and TV roles before making his film debut in 1961. Reynolds often was cast in Westerns, including the popular Gunsmoke television series in the 1960s.
In 1972, the same year Deliverance was released, he showed versatility by also starring in Woody Allen's comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask.
