--- name: "Jerry Reed" canonical: "https://film.one/person/jerry-reed" fi1m_id: "jerry-reed" imdb_id: "nm0715274" tmdb_id: 67764 wikidata_id: "Q712914" roles: ["Actor"] born: "20 March 1937" died: "1 September 2008" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-10-04T16:43:41.058441+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Jerry Reed ## Identity Jerry Reed - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/jerry-reed - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** jerry-reed - **IMDb ID:** nm0715274 - **TMDB ID:** 67764 - **Wikidata ID:** Q712914 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Reed, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q712914, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0715274/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/67764 Actor. Born 20 March 1937 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Died 1 September 2008. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 20 March 1937, Atlanta, Georgia, USA - **Died:** 1 September 2008 - **Active:** 1980–1998 - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Reed, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q712914, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0715274/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/67764 ## Fi1m on Jerry Reed > Jerry Reed never pretended to be an actor, and that is why he worked. A country musician with a cackle and a quick mouth, he was the man beside Burt Reynolds through six films, and he was most useful when the script let him talk. The best thing Jerry Reed does in *Smokey and the Bandit II* (1980) takes about ten minutes and happens before the film has properly started. Cledus walks into a motel room and finds the Bandit bearded, bloated and drunk by lunchtime, and Reed plays it without a flicker of sentiment: he looks, he decides, he gets the hose. We found it unexpectedly sad, and the sadness came from the pair of them, Reynolds playing a man who has read his own notices and Reed refusing to let him stay in bed with them. Then the hat goes back on, the film turns into a chase that forgets to chase, and Reed, like everyone else in it, has nothing left to do but ride along. He was never an actor by trade and never said he was. He was a guitarist and songwriter from Atlanta who recorded rockabilly for Capitol in the mid-1950s, moved to Nashville and spent the late 1960s having hits for RCA. Television variety work got him in front of a camera, and Burt Reynolds got him into films: *W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings* (1975) as a bandleader, then *Gator* (1976) as Bama McCall, a heavier and nastier part than anything he did for years afterwards. *Smokey and the Bandit* (1977) made him Cledus "Snowman" Snow, fixed the persona, and gave him a theme song, "East Bound and Down", which he wrote and sang himself. Two sequels followed, in 1980 and 1983, and after them a run of 1980s parts that did not amount to much, with *Bat*21* (1988) opposite Gene Hackman the one serious exception. What he had was timing, and a voice. The laugh, the fast delivery, the homespun phrasing that sounded as if it had come off a record: in a broad Southern comedy these were enough, and nobody asked for more. Six films with Reynolds and three with Hal Needham gave him a job, which was to stand next to the star and be the one who meant it. What he did not have was technique, and he was the first to say so. "When people ask me what my motivation is, I have a simple answer: money." His attempts at carrying a picture himself, *Hot Stuff* (1979) among them, did not take, and he went back to being the man beside the man. The surprise, for anyone who only knows the trucker, is *The Waterboy* (1998), where he plays Red Beaulieu, a coach, and the good humour is switched off at the wall. It is the one time a film asked him to be disliked, and he managed it. He said himself that the pictures kept him in view long after the music business had lost interest, and that is the right way round to think about him: a singer who found a second room to stand in. Start with the first *Smokey*. The sequels are what happens when the same joke is asked back to work, and by 1980 even Reed looks as if he knows it. ## Biography Jerry Reed was an American country singer, guitarist, songwriter and actor. Born Jerry Reed Hubbard in Atlanta, Georgia, on 20 March 1937, he died in Nashville, Tennessee, on 1 September 2008. He appeared in more than a dozen films, often alongside Burt Reynolds. His roles included Cledus in *Smokey and the Bandit* (1977), *Smokey and the Bandit II* (1980) and *Smokey and the Bandit Part 3* (1983), and Red Beaulieu in *The Waterboy* (1998). He also featured in *Gator* (1976), *Bat*21 (1988) and *The Survivors* (1983). Reed began his career in music in the 1950s and achieved success as a performer and songwriter before moving into acting in the mid-1970s. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Smokey and the Bandit II* (1980), Fi1m 44, as Cledus — [page](https://film.one/film/smokey-and-the-bandit-ii.md) ## Complete filmography (19) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Austin City Limits: Country* (2001), series, Actor - *Ramblin Man 2* (1999), as Reed - *The Waterboy* (1998), as Red Beaulieu - *Bat★21* (1988), as Col. George Walker · Executive Producer - *What Comes Around* (1985), as Joe Hawkins · Director - *Smokey and the Bandit Part 3* (1983), as Cletus / The Bandit - *The Survivors* (1983), as Jack Locke - *Mama's Family* (1983), series, as Leonard Oates - *Mid-South Wrestling* (1981), series, as Jerry Reed (Self - Fan) - *Smokey and the Bandit II* (1980), as Cledus — Fi1m 44, [page](https://film.one/film/smokey-and-the-bandit-ii.md) - *Concrete Cowboys* (1979), as J.D. Reed - *Hot Stuff* (1979), as Doug von Horne - *High-Ballin'* (1978), as Duke - *Smokey and the Bandit* (1977), as Cledus · Original Music Composer - *Nashville 99* (1977), series, as Det. Trace Mayne - *Gator* (1976), as Bama McCall - *W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings* (1975), as Wayne - *The New Scooby-Doo Movies* (1972), series, as Jerry Reed (voice) - *The American Love Affair*, Music ## Gallery - ![Jerry Reed](https://film.one/media/person/3739586/gallery-af8242e1e61a.jpg) Jerry Reed — SSGT Lee Schading, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Jerry_Reed_cropped.jpg/1280px-Jerry_Reed_cropped.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Jerry Reed](https://film.one/media/person/3739586/gallery-5f0bc6007a61.jpg) Jerry Reed — Image via TMDB - ![Jerry Reed](https://film.one/media/person/3739586/gallery-df05f28ff57a.jpg) Jerry Reed — Image via TMDB - ![Jerry Reed](https://film.one/media/person/3739586/gallery-2167e1250c56.jpg) Jerry Reed — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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