Burt Reynolds tribute: Vanilla Ice, others honor the late star at student film ceremony

April 10, 2019

It happened to Todd Vittum just the other day. He was watching an old episode of “Wagon Train,” and couldn’t exactly place the guest star. “I thought ‘You know who would know?’ and started to reach for the phone. And then I remembered.”

What he remembered was that his good friend and mentor Burt Reynolds, who indeed would have not only know the name of that guest star but had a good story about he and that guy and Clint Eastwood went out one night, was not on the end of that phone. And as Vittum and others prepared to go on stage at the Student Showcase of Films last Friday, which honored the late Reynolds and presented some deserving Florida students, the superstar’s absence at an event he attended every year was glaring.

“It’s weird, right?” said Vittum, the executive director of the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film and Theatre and accompanied him on the road to many appearances, including his triumphant late night talk show tour in the early spring of 2018, shortly before his death. (In the interest of full disclosure - I consider myself friends of both Burt and Todd, who texted me photos of the still-charming Bandit from backstage at each of his interviews).

After all, Burt was a fixture at the ceremony, which for 24 years has honored Florida high school and college filmmakers in a variety of categories, because he believed in his home state and the future creatives who live here. And he put his money where his mouth and famous moustache was, sponsoring the Burt Reynolds Scholarship for promising college filmmakers. For me, it was the place each year I knew I was going to see him, to have him kiss my cheek with that aforementioned ’stache and call me “Kid.” I walked up to the door of Lynn University’s Wold Performing Arts Center, where the ceremony is held each year, and thought “I wonder if he’s here yet” and then thought “Aww, man.”

But in a way, he was there, in the comments and gratitude of several of those scholarship winners, in the presence of friends Vittum, Suzanne Niedland and Aaron Wells and even lifelong buddy Mo Mustaine, and on every screen and even sidewalk. It was all Burt, all the time, with a display of the “Smokey and The Bandit” Trans Am outside and a chalk painting, cutouts of the man himself around the red carpet, and constant film clips between every award presentation. There were even tiny child versions of Burt and Sally Field in a tiny Trans Am rolling down the red carpet. The cuteness was overwhelming. There was much squeeing.

Longtime host Frank Licari, who each year starts the show with an over-the-top opening with video, music and usually goofy costumes, topped himself forever with a funny/touching parody of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” namechecking “Smokey,′ “Deliverance,” “Striptease,” “Stick” and every dumb sequel to “Cannonball Run.” It was glorious.

Between tears and loud rounds of laughter, the show was a good reminder of what was important to Burt - Palm Beach County, his friends and family, and using his star power to change things. He provided not only money but his time, to strangers who quickly became friends. There will never be another Burt Reynolds, but his scholarship, his legacy, and so many cardboard cutouts of that smile remain. It can’t help but be a good time.

Originally appeared in The Palm Beach Post.