Marilu Henner was all of Us while working with the one and only Burt Reynolds.
“I was doing Evening Shade at the time, and Burt Reynolds was directing an episode, and he had me do this stunt where I was in the grandstands and I had to, like, run, run, run, run, jump over, jump over [a] thing in a field,” Henner, 73, exclusively told US Weekly on Wednesday, September 10, ahead of the the Saturday, September 13, premiere of Lifetime’s new movie About a Husband to Die For: The Lisa Aguilar Story.
“So, that night I’m in a restaurant with my husband,” she continued. “I went, ‘Oh, the Eagle has landed.’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘No, I’m pregnant. Contact was made.’ Like, what I said [was], ‘Trust me, I’m pregnant.’ And sure enough, I was.”
She added, “I tell everybody, ‘Burt Reynolds got me pregnant,’ even though he’s not the father of my children.”
Henner, who shot to fame in 1978 after starring in the hit sitcom Taxi, shares two sons, Nicholas Lieberman and Joseph Lieberman, with her second husband, Robert Lieberman. The pair were married from 1990 to 2001. (Henner was also married to Frederic Frost from 1980 to 1982. She is currently married to Michael Brown after saying “I do” in 2006.)
Henner worked alongside Reynolds in the 1990 sitcom Evening Shade, starring as Ava Evans Newton, wife of Reynold’s Wood Newton. The comedy series follows Wood, a former professional football player, as he tries to adjust to life in his hometown of Evening Shade, Arkansas, and a new role as head coach of a failing high school football team.
“Burt Reynolds is one of my favorite people that I’ve ever known in my entire life,” Henner continued of her former costar, who died in 2018 at the age of 82 following a heart attack.
Burt Reynolds and Marilu Henner Steve Granitz/WireImage
“I was devastated when he passed away,” she continued. “I had just seen him a couple months before, and every picture of anything that we did together just warms my heart and makes me realize how much I love him more and more.”
She added, “I could tell you all the dates — the first date I met him, the time we ended up doing a nude scene together — because, man, I loved him.”
Starring alongside Reynolds in Evening Shade was “the fifth time” Henner had worked with the beloved actor, she told Us, adding that she didn’t hesitate to say “yes” to playing his wife on the show.
“The first day we met, he asked me to do two more projects with him,” she explained. “And then I also did Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1985 [directed by Reynolds]. And then he asked me to play his wife five years later, on Evening Shade, and of course I wanted to work with him again. So, of course, I did. It was an incredible cast. [Reynolds] taught us how to take photographs.”
Loni Anderson and Burt Reynolds infamously had a rocky marriage from 1988 to 1994. Anderson and Reynolds met on The Merv Griffin Show in 1981 when Anderson was still married to Ross Bickell and Reynolds was dating actress Sally Field. The twosome eventually started dating in 1982 and tied the knot in 1988. “I’m a […]
She continued, “In 1991, for the Emmy Awards, they asked me, Carole Kane, Christopher Lloyd … the three of us, to present the best actor in a sitcom award. I’ll give you that day, because, you know, it was, like, a very special day. It was August 25, 1991, it was a Sunday, and my reaction was something — it was so spontaneous — because I grabbed the card. It was Burt Reynolds, you know. I couldn’t believe he won, and I was just so, so happy, because he was a wonderful actor and a wonderful human being.”
That year, Reynolds won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Evening Shade, going on to thank his then-wife Loni Anderson for giving him “two big ones,” as in orgasms, following the late Kirstie Alley’s memorable acceptance speech after she won an Emmy for her role on the hit series Cheers.
About a Husband to Die For: The Lisa Aguilar Story stars Henner as Gabrielle, a supportive grandmother who helps newly married Lisa Aguilar (Keana Lyn Bastidas) after she survives a vicious attack inside her home. Left for dead, she finds out that the man she loves most, her husband Darren (Jon McLaren), tried to have her killed.
About a Husband to Die For: The Lisa Aguilar Story premieres Saturday, September 13, at 8/7c, only on Lifetime.
