>> you've got a great profile. >> yeah, i do, don't i? especially from the side. >> reporter: or clowning around with johnny carson in one of "the tonight show's" classic moments. >> your first love, perhaps your only love, your idol -- there it is right now. >> but he had serious acting chops, too. breaking through his lewis medlock in "deliverance." >> we get connected up with that body and the law, this thing is going to be hanging over us the rest of our lives! >> reporter: along the way, he confirmed his top leading man status as a macho icon with a funny bone, famously posing in the buff for "cosmopolitan" magazine. >> that was considered shocking in its time. but burt also has a great sense of humor. he added all kinds of dimensions to the sort of leading man category. >> reporter: and in his private life, he was the leading man to a succession of prominent women, from dinah shore to sally field to lonnie anderson. but acting is what defined him. >> let's do it.