After a serious knee injury following a car accident, Burt Reynolds’ dreams of becoming a star football player came to an end. However, Reynolds found a path to stardom through an unexpected therapeutic means of acting. He started off doing small screen roles in series such as Riverboat, then hit it big time with his breakout role in John Boorman’s 1972 classic, Deliverance.
Smith started her career with a professional stage debut in 1952 in Oxford University Dramatics Society production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. After a brief detour of New York’s Broadway Smith made her first film debut in Child in the House (1956) and a larger role in the crime drama, Nowhere to Go. Smith has gone on to win two Academy Awards and two British Academy Film Awards for her early works.
Throughout the 90’s Smith played a diverse range of roles from comedic roles to literary adaptations. Although she battled with Breast Cancer in 2008, she was still able to perform her role as Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter series gained her more popularity among the younger generations. She has also been a series regular in the period drama Downtown Abby which has earned her 3 Emmy Awards in 2011, 2012 and 2016.
Son of the legendary movie star Kirk Douglas, Michael gained fame after starring in the show Streets of San Francisco. His film career followed this as he starred in movies such as The China Syndrome (1979), Romancing the Stone (1984) and Wall Street (1987) for which he won an Academy Award. He later went on to star in movies like Fatal Attraction (1987), Basic Instinct (1992) and Wonder Boys (2000).
In 2010, Douglas who is a heavy smoker was diagnosed with throat tumor for which he went through several weeks of Chemotherapy. Despite his health concerns he went on to reprise his role as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps and the biopic Behind the Candelabra, portraying 60’s entertainer Wladziu Liberace for which he won an Emmy in 2013. Aside from acting Douglas is also an active promoter of human rights and works with the UN.
