Actor Alfie Wise, best known for roles alongside the late Burt Reynolds, including The Cannonball Run and Smokey and the Bandit died at the age of 82 last month, his longtime fiancée, Stephanie Bliss, confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter.

Wise, who retired from acting in 2000, was reported to have died from natural causes at the Thomas H. Corey Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Palm Beach, Florida, on July 22, according to Bliss. The Altoona native made his acting debut in the ABC television movie Call Her Mom in 1972 and played Mr. Rabbit Ears in the children's show Uncle Croc's Block beginning in 1975 before working alongside Lou Ferrigno on the ABC series Trauma Center.

Wise later starred in 10 movies with Reynolds, which also included The Longest Yard (1974), The End (1978), Hooper (1978), Starting Over (1979), Paternity (1981), Stroker Ace (1983), City Heat (1984) and Heat (1986), as well as the 12-episode ABC crime series B.L. Stryker and a guest appearance on Reynolds' CBS sitcom Evening Shade.

“He loved his friends, and he really kept us very close,” Wise said of Reynolds in an interview with the New York Daily News after his death in 2018. “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.”

Wise later became a real estate agent after his retirement from acting in 2000, having worked for Donohue Real Estate in Palm Beach.

Mandy Connell