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

[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.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

I don't remember it all ... when I was introduced to him I remember his exclamation .."A teacher? ...a TEACHER ! .... you're NOTHING like the DRAGONS we had when I was at school ! ! ! " and my attempt to keep a piano between myself and his person all night.

He said the shoot was so interminable that under his costume he had to have a little dilly bag for Pontius Pilate's cigarettes and hip flask and snacks, and that after dropping his handkerchief for the umpteenth time to begin the chariots, he caused a very expensive re-take by sneering at the camera in frustration and growling "I've grown accustomed to this race".

There was one weekend when his friends were beside themselves with worry because Frank hadn't been seen since sometime on Friday and it was now Monday ... they broke into his house and were horrified ti find him tied up, naked and gagged ...they pulled the gag from his mouth and he said ... "I've had the most MARVELOUS week=end!"

I once received a Christmas card in which Frank, naked except for a large woman's hat and bangles, necklaces and other jewelery bedecking every part pf his body, cheerily proclaimed "Christmas was a Drag this year!"

I once billeted Anna Russell in an outback town and her side-kick on that tour was Colin Croft, who told similar bitchy tales of how he had a continuing role in the "Robin Hood" series, and how he and Alan Wheatley, the Sherrif of Nottingham, used to laugh mercilessly at the pmpous Richard Green, who seemed to think he really was Robin Hood except that he was absolutely terrified of his horse.

Colin also told of the carnage on the set of Skippy, who would regularly come to grief in shooting whether by car, or on one occasion high explosive. Skippy was to rescue Sonny and Colin and some others from an explosion in a mine shaft, the shot required them to run from the shaft followed by the explosion. instead of a pyrotechnician, they let a best-boy volunteer for the job and he got a bit over enthusiastic with the charge ... Colin was permanently deafened and received a large compensation settlement, while Skippy was blown to kangaroo-heaven. Skippys were sourced from the country town where I lived and the turnover, while not exactly high, would have scandalized the urban family viewers.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

These are wonderful.

I watched a few minutes of Ben Hur the other day. I missed the chariot race but caught the bit where Pilate awards Judah the prize. I was convinced the guy playing Pilate (very impressive, by the way) was Jose Ferrer.

Sorry, Frank.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

It was Frank's Th(r)ing to play epic heavies ... he was also the Arab villain who gets thrown from the ramparts in "El Cid" and Herod in "King of Kings".

[currawong.livejournal.com]

I just remembered one last Frank Thring story ... he was playing in the famous "Theatre of Cruelty" season with the Royal Shakespeare Company in "Titus Andronicus" with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh ... he had to cut off Olivier's hand, which he did with his customary gusto.

Kirk Douglas was in the audience and he approached Frank after the performance and said, "I liked the way you cut off Laurence Olivier's hand ... would you like to cut off Tony Curtis's hand in "The Vikings"? ... Frank said he'd LOVE to ... and he did.