Me And Charlie Heston- Bestest Buddies Ever

Many years ago I had the pleasure, of sorts, of meeting screen legend Charlton Heston. I remembered this yesterday as I continued the process of scanning all of our old photos onto our home network.

I can’t resist the urge to have everything that possibly can be digitized, digitized. The desire to instantly access all of our personal records, photos, movies, music and correspondence is a sickness I’m sure. But someday, somebody will thank me for it. I hope.

Anyway, it was a hot summer in Atlanta, 1993, and a party was thrown to celebrate the completion of a project Mr. Heston starred in that placed him in the Holy Land reading scripture and telling dramatized Bible stories.

I was part of the sales team that would take that project out into the world to sell millions of VHS copies, and our company’s management had arranged to have each member of our team get a photo standing next to Mr. Heston.

As I waited in line, I was thinking through what I was going to say. It was going to be an honor, for sure, meeting the man that brought so many incredible characters to life on the big screen.

When it was my turn, I approached him, extended my hand, and told him how honored I was to meet him, what an incredible job he had done in The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, and so many other films, and how proud I was to represent his new project. I was beaming ear to ear.

He looked at me, expressionless, and said “Thank you. Now lets take this picture” and then turned to the camera looking like he had known me for years and was interrupted while having a long but interesting conversation with me. Snap. Next.

It didn’t cause me to think less of him- he did have to take about 100 pictures in 30 minutes, so it really didn’t bother me. It just got me thinking, at the time, and again yesterday as I looked at the picture, about how each and every person places their own value and weight to each conversation, meeting and moment that can be vastly different from those they interact with. What may be an incidental comment or gesture may leave a lasting impression, good or bad, on those around us.






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