Fateful Meetings

By Richard Corliss; James Poniewozik

When Harry Met Sally ... well, they got on each other's nerves. Two destinies graze, then merge. In the little picture, they may end up as a wedding photo on a mantelpiece. In the big picture, they become part of 80 years' worth of collective memories. The close encounters we profile in the following pages aren't always first meetings; often they are the first significant ones. But sooner or later, they all created a cocktail of personalities--gin and vermouth, nitro and glycerin--that changed us. In a world that often seems out of people's control, these meetings prove that intimacy still matters; that a chance collision of two individuals can make a difference in how millions of the rest of us are enfranchised, enriched, entertained. John and Paul made music. Billie Jean and Bobby made sport. Fred and Ginger made love on their feet. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made conquest seem an act of comradeship. Read on, and recall how

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow Young, in Love and Homicidal

On Jan. 5, 1930, Clyde Barrow, 20, visited a girlfriend in Dallas and went into the kitchen for some cocoa. There he met Bonnie Parker, 19; he remained sweet on her for their brutal careers. Their supposedly populist capers and violent deaths inspired a film mythology about love, girls and guns.

Fred Astaire And Ginger Rogers Dancing Chic to Chic

First time out, it was Ginger and Fred: she was billed fourth, he fifth in Flying Down to Rio. They were filler, but when they stepped out in the musical number The Carioca, audiences knew that the gangly guy and the pert ingenue were an ideal match. Here was emotion expressed in motion, the finest blending of passion and technique. RKO would go on to pair Fred and Ginger in eight romances that would define how two bodies can flirt and fuse in dance.

Eva Duarte And Juan Peron A Tango of Power in Argentina

The earth moved, and they met. On Jan. 15, 1944, an earthquake hit Argentina. At a benefit for victims, radio actress Eva Duarte sidled up to Colonel Juan Peron. The Lady had found her Macbeth. Peron was elected in 1946 and ran Argentina with the glittering Evita by his side until her death, at 33, from cancer in 1952.

Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad Forging a Different Path for Blacks

Their religion got them together; their politics altered the lives of black America. On Aug. 31, 1952, Malcolm Little met Elijah Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam. Soon afterward, Little formally became Malcolm X. As colleagues, then enemies, they articulated the anger that still resonates in black communities.

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara A Revolutionary Fellowship

When Argentine doctor Guevara and Cuban lawyer Castro crossed paths at a friend's house in Mexico in July 1955, Guevara noted in his diary, "[Castro] is intelligent, very sure of himself and of extraordinary audacity; I think there is mutual sympathy between us." These young men of privilege had much in common: a hatred of the influence of the U.S. on Latin America and a belief that guerrilla action could liberate the masses. On New Year's Day in 1959, Castro brought down the Batista regime and went on to create the first communist government in the western hemisphere. Guevara became a Cuban citizen and steered the country's economic policies. He left Cuba in 1965 to fight for the revolution in Africa and South America. Guevara was executed by the Bolivian army in 1967.

Edmund Hillary And Tenzing Norgay Climbing the Highest Mountain

Why climb Everest? "Because it is there," said mountaineer George Leigh Mallory in 1924. But he died trying. In 1953 another expedition tried to reach the summit of the world and achieved it without death or serious injury. Among the team were a New Zealand beekeeper, Edmund Hillary, and a Nepalese porter, Tenzing Norgay. On May 29 the two fast trekkers paired off, and at 11:30 a.m. they spiked their names in the snows of history. Returning to the team, Hillary told his friend George Lowe, in tones of bluff British pluck, "Well, George, we've knocked the bastard off!"

John Lennon and Paul McCartney The Birth of the Beatles

The Quarry Men were setting up for a dance in a church hall on July 6, 1957, when a 15-year-old bloke grabbed a guitar and ripped through two rockabilly tunes. Lennon, 16, was impressed but wary. If he let this talented McCartney kid in the band, he'd have to share leadership. Admiration won the day, and the Beatles' core had come together.

Muhammad Ali And Joe Frazier The Contest of Champions

For Ali, the fight--his comeback after a jail term for draft refusal--was about race and redemption. For Frazier, it was about shutting Ali up. Ali had mocked Frazier as an Uncle Tom and a "gorilla." Frazier, less garrulous in public, replied with a torrent of body blows, winning the bout in 15 rounds and setting the stage for two historic rematches.

Billie Jean King And Bobby Riggs An Ace for Women's Rights

She was carried onto the Houston Astrodome court by strapping lads in togas. He was wheeled in on a rickshaw pulled by busty models. She was, at 29, a champ in her prime. He was a wheezy 55-year-old man. Today, King's 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 win on national TV would barely be considered a sporting event. On Sept. 20, 1973, it affirmed that women could succeed in sports and more.

Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin Crossing the Desert in a Quest for Peace

Unlike Moses' journey, Sadat's across the Sinai was not a physical hardship--his plane touched down a minute early on Nov. 19, 1977--but the Egyptian leader had to traverse the obstacle of mutual distrust to clasp the hand of his erstwhile enemy. There would be many handshakes and setbacks to come, but Sadat's arrival in Jerusalem to the cheers of Israelis still reminds us that enmity need not be eternal.

Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong An Opening Between East and West

The ailing 78-year-old Chairman, receiving the President at his one-story Beijing home, noted apologetically, "I can't talk very well." But talk they did, for nearly an hour. After almost a quarter-century of nearly no contact, the U.S. and China had serious differences. But when the leaders clasped hands, a great wall had fallen.

Prince Charles And Diana Spencer The Makings of a Fairy Tale

Lady Sarah Spencer, Diana's sister, would later say she was "playing cupid" when she invited the Prince of Wales to her family's Althorp estate for a shooting weekend in November 1977. Sarah was probably joking, since she had had designs on Charles herself. Her sister hardly looked like competition, standing shyly by in a checked shirt and an anorak. Nor was the future princess greatly impressed herself: "What a sad man," she thought of Charles. Her opinion soon changed, and as her father would recall of the weekend, "Somehow she automatically ended up standing at the side of Prince Charles." Years later, she would leave, of course, but that's another story.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen Rise of the Computer Nerds

Tenth-grader Paul was, as one classmate described him, "a nerd who didn't look like a nerd." Eighth-grader Bill was a nerd who, well, did. But when they met at Seattle's private Lakeside School in 1968, they found a common interest in how things worked, especially computers. They soon became close, hanging out in the school computer center playing--and writing--games. "Part of the appeal," Gates would recall in his book The Road Ahead, "was that here was an enormous, expensive, grown-up machine and we, the kids, could control it." Thanks to Microsoft, the software giant that Gates and Allen would eventually found, they would control it in more ways than they could have known.

Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky An Intimate Affair of State

The President and his intern had met each other before Nov. 15, 1995, but the first date they, well, y'know ... met was otherwise quiet. Clinton had no public events and did not leave the White House; he held a few meetings and signed a "Family Week" proclamation. Few civil servants were at work, a result of the government shutdown that led the unlikely pair to work closer together. Lewinsky, who later called their relationship until that point one of "intense flirting," flashed him the straps of her thong at a birthday party for a staff member that evening. Around 8 p.m., she passed adviser George Stephanopoulos' office, where Clinton was alone. He beckoned her in. The rest--though they never prepared us for this back in ninth-grade civics--is history.

Nelson Mandela And F.W. de Klerk Toasting to a New South Africa

When South Africa's President took power in 1989, Mandela saw him as a "cipher." But there was no mistaking the smiling de Klerk's worth when the two finally met the following year and de Klerk told the antiapartheid leader that after 27 years in jail, he would be released the next day. De Klerk poured two tumblers of whiskey, but Mandela only pretended to drink. "Such spirits," he said, "are too strong for me." No matter. His spirit was strong enough.