Orson Wells was talking about Burt Reynolds when he said “…[Reynolds] already is a crowd pleaser one of the biggest and he earned his way not through a couple of lucky movies but over a long long period of time. He didn’t get here yesterday. He’s in the highest and best sense of that word a self-made man, a self-made Superstar.”

Did you ever watch the credits roll at the end of a movie? Scores of people invest their time and talent in every project Hollywood produces. Script writers, camera operators, sound engineers, costumers, editors, stuntmen, prop managers, caterers, and hundreds of others toiled to put every blockbuster on the screen.

Reynolds did not build the cameras, lights, and various pieces of equipment. He didn’t provide the tools used to construct the sets. All that stuff was the result of nameless people doing their jobs with no clue that they played a role in making a movie.

I’ll mention that hundreds of thousands of people provided electricity, telephone service, roads, and all the other resources required to make the tools used by the people who made the movies that starred Burt Reynolds.

That’s not counting the millions of people who bought tickets to see the movies. Without fans, there are no celebrities.

And let’s not forget the humans who kept Burt Reynolds alive during his infancy and early childhood. Somebody fed him, clothed him, and taught him how to walk, talk, chew gum, and grin toward the camera.

Legions of people labored to help Burt Reynolds make himself a Superstar.

The Self Made Man is a myth. I can’t name all the people who are responsible for my accomplishments but I know one person who had very little to do with my success…

Me.

(1 Corinthians 3:7) So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.