Terms of Estrangement : Burt Reynolds Pleads Poverty in Custody Fight With Actress Ex-Wife

Actor Burt Reynolds says he is financially down--his net worth dropping from $7.5 million to $2 million in the hole in six months--and until he can make a comeback, he can’t afford the $15,000 a month he pays in child support.

“Like every American, I’m having a cash-flow problem right now,” Reynolds testified Monday at a custody and child-support hearing in Superior Court.

Reynolds, who made more than $43 million between 1988 and 1994, according to court records, is seeking a reduction in the support he pays for his adopted son Quinton, 6, whose custody he shares with his former wife, actress Loni Anderson.

The former spouses, whose bitter breakup two years ago generated tabloid headlines for months, entered the courtroom of Judge Robert M. Letteau through separate doors and maintained a chilly distance throughout the hearing.

Anderson had no comment about the legal wrangling. She is scheduled to testify later in the week.

Although Reynolds achieved a minor victory, winning custody of Quinton for Christmas Day, his testimony about his finances was marked by alternating quips and lapses of memory.

“My IQ seems to have dropped 100 points since I got up here,” the actor said during one particularly rigorous round of questioning.

He used his day on the witness stand to announce that he might be down, but he’s not out.

“I’m down and I’m going to come back and when I come back, I hope that Quinton gets everything he can from me,” the actor testified.

Right now, Reynolds said, he has no movie offers pending and little money trickling in from residuals.

“I have lots of plans. I don’t have lots of offers.”

Reynolds, a former Florida State football player and show-biz stuntman, said he recently sold a home in North Carolina and took a second mortgage on his ranch in Jupiter, Fla.

Questioned by Anderson’s lawyer, Martin Simone, Reynolds acknowledged that he really doesn’t know how much money he made, how much he spent or how much he has left.

“Mr. Reynolds, how do you know you have a cash-flow problem?” the attorney asked.

“Because I have cut back,” Reynolds replied. “I have sold everything I had to pay bills and I have been asked . . . not to spend any money because I have bills to pay.”

He told Simone it “would be difficult for any person who takes a job as an actor does to talk about how much he made each year, each month, each week. It fluctuates. I can’t tell you exactly what I made the last six years.”

He said a previous business manager “took” $15 million from him. For the past six years, he said, his financial affairs have been handled by another man.

But asked by Anderson’s attorney to identify that money manager, Reynolds glanced toward a group of men seated in the front row of the courtroom.

“Ray, yeah, is that who they mean?” Reynolds asked. “What is your last name, Ray?”

“Young,” the money manager responded.

Financial manager Ray Young is expected to be a key witness today.

Anderson’s lawyers homed in on a $10-million discrepancy between the assets Reynolds reported in a loan application in May and a financial statement he gave the court in September.

In the May statement, Reynolds listed assets of more than $7.5 million. But in September, he claimed to be more than $2 million in debt.

Even the judge seemed stunned by what he called a “$10-million swing over six months.”

“I must have had someone that I owed that amount to,” Reynolds explained.

“Did you lose $10 million?” the judge asked.

“Yes, I did,” Reynolds said.

Financial statements provided earlier to the court showed a monthly gift budget of $8,300, but Reynolds said he can no longer afford such gifts.

“How many gifts have you bought this year?” Simone asked.

“I don’t remember,” Reynolds said. He said the last one he recalled was a $19 rubber football he gave his son.

The financial statements also showed that Reynolds has spent about $180,000 on “divorce related expenses.” Asked what those expenses entailed, Reynolds shot back: “I don’t know, but I’m sure that’s lawyers. You’ll have to ask Mr. Young. You guys stack up a lot of hours.”

The $10,000 he spent on personal items, Reynolds claimed, was used to buy books.

“I don’t play golf. I don’t gamble. . . . I read when I can’t sleep, which is every night the past two years.”

The breakup of his marriage began a streak of hard times for Reynolds. Dinah Shore, a former lover with whom he remained close, died of cancer. The Florida Citrus Commission and the Quaker State oil company dropped him as a TV spokesman.

He was the victim of an attempted mugging in Studio City and in March was hospitalized with chest pains. His “Evening Shade” series was canceled by CBS. Reruns of its first four seasons were sold at a discount to the Family Channel in a move that reportedly cost Reynolds millions of dollars.

As he left the courtroom, Reynolds acknowledged, “I didn’t look too good. That’s why I’m an actor. I’m not an accountant.”

He added that his difficulties in the courtroom are no different than other divorced dads, even if “the numbers are bigger.”

“Basically, I owe $5 and I got $4.”