NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jerry Reed, a singer who became a good ol’ boy actor in car chase movies like “Smokey and the Bandit,” has died of complications from emphysema at 71.
His longtime booking agent, Carrie Moore-Reed, no relation to the star, said Reed died early Monday.
“He’s one of the greatest entertainers in the world. That’s the way I feel about him,” Moore-Reed said.
Sony BMG Nashville Chairman Joe Galante called Reed a larger-than-life personality.
The article goes on to name some of Jerry’s songs, which are now playing in my head. I grew up listening to country music, and his songs were quite popular during my teenage years. “She got the goldmine (I got the shaft),” “When you’re hot you’re hot,” “Amos Moses”… these are some of the songs of my adolescence. He wasn’t a favorite of mine, but the songs stayed with me, apparently.
In the mid-1970s, he began acting in movies such as “Smokey and the Bandit” with Burt Reynolds, usually as a good ol’ boy. But he was an ornery heavy in “Gator,” directed by Reynolds, and a hateful coach in 1998’s “The Waterboy,” starring Adam Sandler.
Reynolds gave him a shiny black 1980 Trans Am like the one they used in “Smokey and the Bandit.”
Hmmm… sure am glad that the AP is “real” media, and has all them fancy fact-checkers and everything. It would be a shame if they was to type sumthin’ stoopid like the yokels who sit around in their pajamas at their keyboards, wouldn’t it?
Smokey & The Bandit came out while I was in high school. I graduated high school in 1978. It would be kind of hard to have a 1980 Trans Am two or more years before 1980, wouldn’t it? Out of curiosity, I checked IMDB.com – 30 seconds of my time yielded the information that Smokey was made in 1977. But I’m not real media, so my fact-checking doesn’t count. I’m just one of those part-time bloggers, sitting here at my keyboard in my pj’s (literally – I’m only 20 minutes out of bed at this point).
Ah, well. It’s just a washed-up entertainer who passed away. Accuracy doesn’t matter that much in that case, I guess. After all, it’s not like it was a memo from a National Guard commander, denigrating a presidential candidate, right? They would fact-check that, I’m sure.
edited to add: The AP article I link to is 13 hours old at this point. I guess no one has bothered to tell the reporter(s) about their little time paradox, and the link I found doesn’t have a space for comments.