A ramrod salute to an icon of the silver screen, Charlton Heston. As I reflect on Mr. Heston’s big roles, I’m digging the way this guy rolled.
He played it straight and he played it well. We get to see his Moses role every Easter-time. Ben-Hur, Heston’s Oscar-winning role is a well-worn videotape in my collection (yes, I said videotape).
The obituaries recount that Heston marched with Dr. King in the early 60s, well before civil rights were Hollywood hip.
Eventually, changed from his early liberal leanings. He switched parties. Once he campaigned for Adlai Stevenson and JFK, later in his life he campaigned for GOP candidates from Nixon ’72 through Bush ’00.
His union affiliation (president of the Screen Actors Guild), which I also liked, switched too. His Wikipedia entry notes that he left Actor’s Equity because they would not let a white actor play a Eurasian role in the stage version of “Miss Saigon.” “Obscenely racist,” said Heston. I once interviewed late actor John Hancock on the notion of Cross-ethnic casting. The large African-American man said, “I’d love to play a Nazi.”
Heston’s sci-fi era (“Soylent Green,” “Planet of the Apes”) was always cool in my eyes, which is a warning to all those who think highly of their own sophistication.
His leadership of the National Rifle Association was cool too, climaxed by his legendary photo op, holding a vintage long gun over head. You’ll have to take my second amendment rights when you pry them from “my cold, dead hands” (in his inimitable, million-dollar baritone).
(Why does my defense of the Second Amendment feel so “radical?” Is it only because of my defense of the Black Panthers’ exercise of Second Amendment rights?)
I’m still studying his thoughts on the Culture War, delivered at Harvard on Feb. 16, 1999. (Love the speeches at AmericanRhetoric.com.)
I dig his 64 year marriage to Lydia, very un-Hollywood.
I hope they give him a 21-gun salute, one shot at a time.
Most importantly, I hope the Savior he met in Ben-Hur was his in real life too.
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