Charlton Heston RIP

[poliphilo]

Dear Chuck,

You were the first film star I ever loved. Ben Hur is very long and boring but at the time I was just grateful to be in your presence. The chariot race is magic.

I think you took yourself a little too seriously- certainly it's hard to imagine you playing comedy- and perhaps that's what held you back from being the great actor I believe you wanted to be- and so nearly were.

You were in some very good films. El Cid is a favourite of mine. The Warlord is forgotten but cool. Soylent Green and Planet of the Apes are cult classics.

Touch of Evil is a masterpiece. I believe you used your star power to ensure Welles got to direct it. That could be the single most important thing you ever did.

I saw you on stage once. You did OK.

I'm a European so I really don't get that thing about guns but I guess it all made sense to you. I don't think it was kind of Michael Moore to doorstep you the way he did.

You were an innocent-  a gallant gentleman- married to the same woman for 64 years, which is sweet. Gore Vidal and his mates laughed at you for not getting the gay subtext they'd inserted into Ben Hur- and that sniggering accompanied you all through life. You probably deserved a lttle gentle mockery (who doesn't?) but I don't believe you were ever hated. You were too nice, too courteous, too trusting. You got to play all manner of antique fools, but you never got to play Don Quixote, which is a pity, because you'd have been a natch.

Off you go then on your white stallion across the limitless sands,

Vaya con Dios,

Poliphilo

Comments

[jfs.livejournal.com]

With regard to comedy, Heston had a small role in Wayne's World Two - he wasn't rip-roaringly funny, but he was at least willing to send himself up a little.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I should perhaps have said it's difficult to imagine the young Heston playing comedy. I think he lightened up as he grew older.

[jenny_evergreen]

That was very sweet and quite perfect.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

EDIT: I took off on one bit of the Charleston Heston meditation, which may lead you to believe that I didn't appreciate the rest of it. Believe me, I did. I'm not sure when it became fashionable to snigger at simple decency, but it's a damned shame.

Let me explain "the gun thing."

Shortly before we declared our independence from you, you tried to put a lid on our rebellion by collecting all our guns. We had a thing or two to say about that. Some of us have very long memories.

That phrase in our Second Amendment about "a well-regulated militia" being necessary to a free society? It means a couple of things, but especially it means a distrust of anyone having a monopoly on the means of self-defense. Well-regulated means well-controlled, and the best control on a militia etc. is the knowledge that they'd best not turn on the citizenry because the citizens have guns and know how to use them.

I have believed for a long time that a well-armed and cantankerous citizenry is the best defense against tyranny. I've seen nothing in my lifetime to change my mind.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"Decency" Yes. I can think of very few actors or other celebs who embody that quality.

I see what you're saying about guns. It's a persuasive argument and I respect it.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

it means a distrust of anyone having a monopoly on the means of self-defense

Yes. The only good government is minimal government, and one perpetually afraid of its people.

[sculptruth.livejournal.com]

I have believed for a long time that a well-armed and cantankerous citizenry is the best defense against tyranny. I've seen nothing in my lifetime to change my mind.



While a small part of me admires your romantic philosophy, I find it extremely fascinating. Given the slow and painful grasp of our civil freedoms over the last eight (twenty-eight) years I feel that tyranny takes a different shape this century. Our possession of guns in a generally passive society is of no use to anyone, the least of them being those who use guns against each other.

I don't really foresee Americans taking their guns and rising up against the government which slowly took their liberties over time while they were being anesthetised by iPods, XBoxes, and Hollywood.

[(Anonymous)]

Liberal that I am, I could not agree more. When the government owns all the weaponry, the citizenry becomes enslaved.
Checks and balances -- even the citizenry are part of that equation, not just appointed and elected officials.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Heston is another actor from my parents/grandparents' generation. I suspect I'll wax similarly nostaligic if I ever find myself reading Harrison Ford's obit. He's the first actor I can think of that I remember watching on screen while growing up who has a similar sort of appeal.

(sorry, the first time I tried posting this I clicked "post" when I shouldn't have)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Those two have a lot in common. Ben Hur was the Star Wars of my childhood.

Ford

[(Anonymous)]

The only man for whom I would gladly have left my husband.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

That was an excellent obit. Thank you.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I tried to do him justice. He meant a lot to me.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

It was weird to me that we just watched the original Planet of the Apes a couple of nights ago and then I read that Charlton had passed away. It is sure a cult classic but wow... I was surprised by my feeling about the movie now.

I had no idea that he had Alzheimer's. How sad!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My favourite Heston role is in El Cid. I feel I want to watch that movie again now.

[sovay]

That's very lovely.

My mother remembers that the first time she saw Ben Hur—they lived in Norman, Oklahoma; her father was a professor at the university—her mother had gone to Oklahoma City to picket a segregated department store, and Charlton Heston was there, leading the protest. She never liked how conservative he became with the NRA, but it was not how she defined him.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I only found out about his support for civil rights when I googled him today and up came all these pictures of him standing shoulder to shoulder with James Baldwin and Harry Belafonte.

I didn't like the way his politics developed, but I never doubted that he was a good and honourable man.

[sculptruth.livejournal.com]

I love this obit, tremendously! May I quote you?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Please do. I'd be highly flattered.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome :)

[ex-redrain.livejournal.com]

I have enjoyed reading your posts, and this post. Would you mind adding another reader?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Of course not. I'm very happy to make your aquaintance. :)

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

Charleton Heston was the first man I ever saw naked. It was "Planet of the Apes". My dad took me to see it at the theater when I was 14. I could have died of embarrassment. Still, it was one my favorite Heston films, along with "Soylent Green".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd sort of clicked out of Heston by the time he entered his sci-fi phase.

As a very young man Chuck earned pocket money as an artist's model- and his wife used to sew his posing pouches....

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Chuck said and did some dreadful things, (turning up in Colorado for a gun rally within weeks of the Columbine Massacre), but you're right, i was hard to hate someone who had given so much entertainment over the years, both good ("A Touch of Evil") and bad, (the hilarious loves scenes in "The Ten Commandments - "Moses, Moses, you wild, impetuous fool, I love you Moses!). He did a wonderfully over the top Byronic hero in the fabulous old ant-movie clunker, "The Naked Jungle", a personal favourite.

I once had the pleasure of listening to the very funny, rather lovable, ghastly old queen Frank Thring tell tales of life on the set of the chariot race in "Ben-Hur". Much funnier than the movie.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You should make a post out of Frank Thring's tales. I'm hungry to know more.

Turning up in Columbine to wave a gun around wasn't the most sensitive thing he could have done. I'd like to think he was already coming down with Altzheimer's by that stage.

[clindau.livejournal.com]

I saw Heston in A Man for all Seasons in London in 1987. Not bad, not bad at all. I think that was also the night of the King's Cross tube fire; we got to our hotel close to midnight and the Beeb was still broadcasting (unusual back then if I recall), which led me to believe that something was up in the world.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I saw him on stage in The Caine Mutiny Trial- in the role of Captain Queeg. He was good, but not so good as to wipe out memories of Humphrey Bogart's film performance.

[senordildo.livejournal.com]

Orson Welles in turn called Heston “the nicest man to work with that ever lived in movies.” He was one of the last of the true movie-stars and his passing is doubly sad for that. One of my favorite Heston related bits is Phil Hartman's snl parody of Heston reading from Madonna's "Sex" book.
As for gun control: if Conservatives are so afraid of the government taking over, why do they keep giving it a bigger and bigger defense budget? If the government decided to take over, it wouldn't matter how many guns you had--Waco is proof that all the guns in world won't protect you from a squadron of helicopter gunships. Sheer hypocrisy.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm keeping out of the gun debate. As an Englishman I simply don't understand what the fuss is all about. Gun controls are very tight in this country and no-one questions them. After the school shooting in Dunblane about ten years ago they were tightened still further to widespread public applause.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Ben Hur: oh, that scene where Stephen Boyd dies after his chariot wrecks. Eee.

And the eerie leper colony.

I saw it with nuns all around me in the theater, and we all cried.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was coming down with some dreaded childhood disease when I first saw Ben Hur- and all the latter part of the movie (after the chariot race) was fogged with mounting fever.