Reynolds, Burt

(Burton Leon Reynolds Jr., 1936.02.11-    )  Actor.

Witness at a coroner's inquest

Gila Bend's TraveLodge Motel where the body was found became the Golden Star Motel, but on last check was not accepting overnight guests.  3-02.

When Burt Reynolds started filming the movie The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973) near Gila Bend, he did not know that he would soon be called on to testify at a coroner's inquest called to investigate the mysterious death of a screenwriter.

The cast of Cat Dancing was put up at the TraveLodge Motel, then the finest accommodations available in Gila Bend.  On February 11, 1973, the body of a handsome 26 year old aspiring screenwriter was found face down near a pool of blood in the room of British actress Sarah Miles. The air was full of suspicion. Miles, then 31 and married, later admitted to having an affair with the screenwriter.  The tabloids would have described a violent altercation between Miles and her younger paramour upon her return to the room from a pre-38th birthday party for her costar, Burt Reynolds. They would report on an urgent phone call to Reynolds for help, and Miles overnight stay in Reynolds's motel room.

The anticlimactic ending to the Gila Bend whodunit came with the Coroner's jury finding that the screenwriter died as a result of a drug overdose. Testimony had shown deceased to be manic-depressive and a manipulator who had threatened and attempted suicide previously to keep his position in the home of Miles and her screenwriter husband.