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ALFIE Wise, friend to Burt Reynolds who featured in Smokey and the Bandit and a host of his other movies, has died at 82.
The veteran screen actor passed away from natural causes at a medical facility in West Palm Beach, Florida, his long-time fiancée, Stephanie Bliss confirmed.
Alfie played a trooper in the prison-set The Longest Yard (1974) – his first onscreen collaboration with Reynolds, who starred in that movie and many others.
He would return again and again to work alongside his famous friend – in The End (1978), Hooper (1978), Starting Over (1979), Paternity (1981), Stroker Ace (1983), City Heat (1984) and Heat (1986).
At just 5ft 5′, Alfie was the pint-sized permanent butt of Reynold’s jokes as the marina owner Oliver Wardell in the ABC crime series B.L Stryker, which ran from 1989-90.
Reynolds died in 2018, and Wise said of him a short time later: “He loved his friends, and he really kept us very close.
“His films were like an ongoing block party. I think the audience caught on to that.
“You always knew you were going to have a great time with a Burt Reynolds movie.”
Alfie was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in 1942, and served as class president in the local school.
He was class president again at Penn State University, which he graduated from in 1964.
His first on-screen appearances came in 1972 with ABC’s pilot telefilm Caller Her Mom and an episode of CBS’s The Sandy Duncan Show.
One of his best-known roles was as the sheepish sidekick to the director (Robert Klein) of the action film The Spy Who Laughed at Danger.
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In more recent years, Reynolds worked as a real estate agent in Jupiter, Florida.
A long-time friend of Alfie’s, Lee (McConahy) Montgomery, told the Altoona Mirror that she and him had won a dance competition together at the Altoona Area High School.
She said that no one else had wanted to dance with the young Alfie due to his vertical challenges.
Her prize was a Trifari pin with multicolored stones, she said.
Lee said she hadn’t maintained close contact with Alfie over the years, but knew he was living in Florida with his fiancée, Stephanie Bliss, and that he liked to lead a private life.
