Skip to content
Entertainment
Link copied to clipboard

Burt Reynolds and Marc Summers once almost got into a fight on the ‘Tonight Show’

The spat ended in a pie-throwing contest.

Actor Burt Reynolds at the 55th Annual Golden Globes on Jan. 18, 1998 at the Beverly Hilton. (Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Actor Burt Reynolds at the 55th Annual Golden Globes on Jan. 18, 1998 at the Beverly Hilton. (Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times/TNS)Read moreGary Friedman/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Back in 1994, Burt Reynolds appeared on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, where he and the Philly's own Marc Summers nearly came to blows in one of the most memorable blooper moments in TV history.

The pair appeared on the show on Oct. 17, 1994, smack in the middle of Reynolds' highly publicized divorce from Loni Anderson, as well as the release of his autobiography, My Life. Leno joked about the divorce at the top of the show that night, leaving Reynolds in a sour enough mood to chop the host's tie off with a pair of scissors during their interview.

Reynolds continued seething as Leno started his interview with Summers, who was extremely nervous. As he wrote in his 1999 autobiography, Everything in Its Place, Summers, who started as a musician, had planned a magic trick involving cutting Leno's tie off and restoring it. However, he never got to the trick.

During his interview, Summers announced to the audience that he was something of a "neatness freak," the first time the TV host acknowledged what he would later learn was obsessive compulsive disorder, as he wrote in Everything in Its Place. Reynolds, annoyed by the segment, interrupted to ask who told Summers he was obsessed over neatness.

"Who told you that you were a neatness freak?" Reynolds said. "I just say that because your back is turned to me, and I was just talking to a back."

"My wife told me that," Summers said, patting Reynolds on the shoulder. "I'm still married."

Reynolds responded by dumping a mug of water into Summers' lap, and smacked another mug to Summers' face after the Double Dare host attempted to retaliate.

"You're not a neatness freak anymore," Reynolds said. Summers responded by finally successfully dumping a mug of water on the actor.

From there, the incident devolved into a pie-throwing fight, which unfortunately didn't make the situation seem any less aggressive. However, after pieing one another, Reynolds and Summers embraced.

"Burt hugged me and whispered, 'I only did that because I really like you,'" Summers wrote in his autobiography, adding that Reynolds also gave him a copy of My Life that night. "I kept the book as a memento of the night. I've never read it."

Summers was still talking about the incident as recently as earlier this summer, when he appeared on Scott Rogowsky's Running Late Show. He began appearing on a reboot of Double Dare, which was originally filmed in Philadelphia in the '80s, about the same time as his appearance on Rogowsky's show.

"This was not planned. This is all real. Jay calls me the next day, 'What's going on between you and Burt?'," Summers said. "I said, 'You know, it was like survival of the fittest.' I started off as a stand-up comic. You wait to be on The Tonight Show your whole life, I'm not going to let this guy f– it up for me."

Reynolds died surrounded by family on Thursday at a Florida hospital following a heart attack. He was 82.