Reynolds would pick injury over premieres

Burt Reynolds has an intense dislike for movie premieres. Always has – even before his experience at the New York premiere of “The Longest Yard” in May, when he landed in hot water for playfully slapping a reporter. Reynolds prefers to call it a “love tap.”

It’s no wonder then that Reynolds skipped Thursday’s Hollywood premiere after-party for “The Dukes of Hazzard,” which opened Friday. “I’d rather be shot in the leg,” Reynolds says over iced tea at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. “Ninety percent of the people there have nothing to do with the picture.”

But Reynolds, who plays Boss Hogg, has a perfectly reasonable alibi for arriving late to Thursday’s red carpet. His excuse: “I was doing the Carson show.”

Reynolds quickly explains his verbal lapse: “Jay (Leno) is wonderful and a good friend, but it will always be the Carson show to a lot of people.”

Now 69, Reynolds was a fixture on Carson’s “Tonight Show” during his celebrity heyday in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when he starred in the “Cannonball Run” and “Smokey and the Bandit” franchises. Reynolds believes it was his bandit-on-the-run character that spawned the “Dukes” TV series, which aired from 1979-85.

In the film, Reynolds dons Hogg’s familiar white suit, but today Reynolds is dressed all in black. His gray goatee and touches of gold bling accentuate the perpetual tan he maintains by spending time in Los Angeles and Jupiter, Fla., where he keeps tabs on The Burt Reynolds and Friends Museum.

Having recently settled an ugly financial battle with his longtime companion, Pam Seals, Reynolds is single again. He says Seals couldn’t handle the demands of his acting career, which often took him on the road without her. Nonactors “don’t understand,” he says. “But it wasn’t all her insecurities. It’s always half and half.”

As for the woman he has been seen with lately – Kate Johnson, the widow of his entertainment lawyer Deane Johnson – Reynolds says she is only a friend.

But he hasn’t lost his touch with the ladies, says “Dukes” co-star Jessica Simpson. “My first day on set, (he) had an antique sapphire daisy ring for me,” she recalls. “He said, ‘Welcome to the movie business.’ “