Homoerotic Heston
There's long been a rumor in Hollywood that Steven Boyd played
his character Messala as a former teen-age lover of Charlton Heston's Ben-Hur--but failed to tell the latter what he was doing. It would not have been that unusual in that historical context, and it certainly would have gone a long way in explaining the bitter rivalry that so quickly exploded between the two old friends. Heston, of course, missed the subtext completely.