ONCE he was one of cinema’s biggest box office attractions.

But Burt Reynolds’ star has faded and he is no longer on the A-list.

So what happened? The host of Piers Morgan’s Life Stories will be doing his best to find out.

The former tabloid editor tries to shed some light on the hirsute hunk whose million-dollar grin and trademark ’tache once left women the world over weak at the knees.

Born in Georgia in 1936, Reynolds grew up in Michigan and Florida, and did the usual manual labour jobs to support his acting dreams. TV shows Riverboat and The Lawless Years helped pay the rent, and by 1961 he had made his movie debut in Angel Baby.

Spaghetti western Navajo Joe boosted his fan base, and by 1972 he gave one of the best turns of his life in disturbing backwoods drama Deliverance.

His fame, wealth and charisma may have attracted some of Hollywood’s most glamorous actresses, but he believes posing nude for Cosmopolitan magazine in 1972 may have cost him an Oscar.

Crowd-pleasers such as Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run helped dull the pain, but 1980 single Let’s Do Something Cheap and Superficial seemed to be his manifesto for the next 17 years. He returned to TV projects suchas BL Stryker, and sitcom Evening Shade, which bagged him an Emmy.

Off-screen, bad business investments and a costly divorce from actress Loni Anderson took their toll on Reynolds. By the late 1990s, he did make one wise movie choice – Boogie Nights, the drama about the porn industry in which Reynolds played fading film-maker Jack Horner, landing him an Oscar nomination and Golden Globe award.

He returned to jobbing roles such as Boss Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard movie, and a remake of his classic prison caper The Longest Yard, while a Specsavers commercial ensured he could make a spectacle of himself without having to watch the ads on home turf.

Now 76, the actor and director may have had a few ups and downs in his life, but he has also lived the sort of life many men can only dream of.