A Kansas City man has shared memories of a poignant encounter with Rob Reiner, as the world continues to process the filmmaker and his wife Michele Singer Reiner’s tragic deaths.
Like so many, Eric Thut, 55, loved movies like The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally. However, it was another, often-forgotten entry in Reiner’s filmography that made the biggest impact on his life.
In 1997, Reiner collaborated with pediatricians and psychologists to raise awareness of the importance of early childhood. The result was I Am Your Child: The First Years Last Forever, an initiative created to provide advice and guidance to new parents on how to help young children reach their full potential. Part of the initiative was a video tape hosted by Reiner himself that was distributed to new parents.
Thut was one of those parents. He and his wife already had one young child but, with another on the way, he was feeling the pressure that comes with parenthood. Originally from California but now living in Kansas City, the couple were thousands of miles from friends and family, with no support network to call on. In their absence, Reiner’s words on that tape meant so much.
“While I read all the books that were popular at the time before our first kid, and felt we managed to stumble through and keep them alive fine, it felt like, at the time, there was so much pressure to get parenting perfect,” Thut told Newsweek. “I remember watching the tape and feeling like the worry and stress I was feeling was normal, expected, and messing up was OK; it was the trying that was the important part.”
A few years later, in 2004, Thut was backstage at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, for Howard Dean, then the governor of Vermont and a contender for the Democrat presidential nomination, when he realized he was standing near Reiner. “I remember Rob standing a bit on his own, and I was such a big fan that I decided to say hello,” Thut said. “He was one of the few famous folks there that wasn’t being surrounded, and everything I had ever seen about him made it seem like he was just a good guy.”
When Thut first approached Reiner, he had planned on talking about his favorite movies of his. Instead, Thut found himself talking about how much the First Years Last Forever meant to “two new parents in a new city away from family.”
Reiner’s reaction caught Thut off-guard. “He turned to me, his eyes welled up, and he told me how much doing that video meant to him.” Thut said. “I couldn’t help but get choked up.” Both men became emotional. A moment later, Thut recalls Reiner asking “if he could give me a hug.” He was only too happy to oblige.
“I was missing my family at the time, and this was a moment to stop thinking about the campaign’s craziness and focus on them and the things that were truly important to me,” Thut said. “I don’t remember it being awkward at all, just comforting and a true moment of connection.”
Thut saw some incredible things on that campaign trail—he says he was 10 feet away from Dean when the infamous “Dean Scream” occurred—but this was the one that stayed with him. It was something that came to the fore in his mind when he learned what had happened.
“The world—and especially the U.S.— is such a dumpster fire these days that I would think I would be numb to news like this,” he said. “But it really saddened me more than most of the awful things we see and hear every day.”
That was when Thut decided to take to Reddit, posting under the handle u/etinkc, to share his story. “I just wanted to inject a little bit of humanity back into the world,” he said. “Rob Reiner gave me and so many people joy in their lives, and I hope sharing my story of my encounter with him would do the same—at least a little bit.”
