I was nineteen, alone in the dark of the theater, watching The Chase when I felt it — that first electric knowing.
Not just beauty, but gravity. Not just a face, but a future.
“He’s going to be a huge star,” I whispered to no one. And I was right.
Decades later, on Thanksgiving at Meadowood, I crossed the room to say what I’d held all that time.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I said, nodding to his guest with a smile. “I just had to tell you — I saw you in The Chase in 1966. I was nineteen. And I knew.”
He looked up, kind, a little surprised, as if the years folded back for both of us in that moment. As if the girl in the theater had just met the man she’d always admired.
