One wonders what Burt Reynolds may have expected the newspapers to cover in the wake of his death. It could have be his late-career, award-nominated resurgence in Boogie Nights, perhaps the force with which he burned during the late Seventies or simply that indefatigable moustache.

But deep down, he probably knew that his greatest career regret would be what was proliferating on Twitter: the 1972 Cosmopolitan centrefold in which he poses drunk, smoking and totally nude on a bearskin rug.

“He did it first. And best. And naked,” wrote Ryan Reynolds, sharing the sepia-drenched picture. “You’ll never be lying naked on a bearskin rug cool. RIP,” posted another fan, while another quipped: “thank you for starting Casual Fridays.”

It’s easy to see the appeal: even if the snap wasn’t the first male nude centrefold in publishing history, the photograph has the kind of woozy Seventies appeal that, come 2018, makes for internet gold.

Reynolds is propping himself up on one elbow rested casually on a dead bear’s face, his mouth held in a suggestive grin, and nothing but his muscular forearm covering his bits. Forty years on, it’s still funny and sexy in equal measure.