Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston (born
October 4,
1924) is an
Academy Award-winning
American film actor noted for
heroic roles and his long involvement in
political issues.
Heston was born
John Charlton Carter in
St. Helen, Michigan to Lila Charlton and Russell Whitford Carter. He was raised in the north woods of
Michigan, where he enjoyed hunting, shooting, and fishing. When he was ten, his parents divorced. Shortly thereafter, his mother married Chester Heston. The new family moved to well-off
Wilmette,
Illinois, a northern suburb of
Chicago,
Illinois. Heston (his new surname) attended
New Trier High School. He enrolled in the school's drama program, where he performed with such outstanding results that he earned a drama scholarship to
Northwestern University from the Winnetka Community Theatre in which he was also active. While still in high school, he played in the silent 16 mm amateur film adaptation of
Peer Gynt made by David Bradley. Several years later the same team produced
Julius Caesar, in which Heston played
Mark Antony.
In 1944, Heston left college and enlisted in the
United States Army Air Corps. He served for two years as a
B-25 radio operater/gunner stationed in the
Alaskan
Aleutian Islands with the
Eleventh Air Force, rising to the rank of
Staff Sergeant.
While in the service, he married fellow Northwestern student Lydia Marie Clarke in 1944. After the war, the two lived in the
Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, where they worked as
models. Seeking a way to make it in
theater, they decided in 1947 to manage a playhouse in
Asheville,
North Carolina. In 1948, they went back to New York where Heston was offered a supporting role in the
Broadway play
Antony and Cleopatra, starring the legendary Katherine Cornell, for which he earned acclaim. He also had success in
television, playing a number of roles in
CBS's
Studio One, one of the most popular
anthology dramas of the 1950s.
In 1950, he earned recognition for his appearance in his first professional movie,
Dark City. His breakthrough came in 1952 with his role of a circus manager in
The Greatest Show on Earth. But the muscular, 6 ft 3 in, square jawed Heston became an icon by portraying
Moses in
The Ten Commandments, a part he was chosen for reportedly because director
Cecil B. DeMille thought that he bore an uncanny resemblance to the statue of Moses by
Michaelangelo. He has played leading roles in a number of fictional and historical epics—such as
Ben-Hur,
El Cid,
55 Days at Peking and
Khartoum—during his long career. He once quipped, "They seem to think I have a
Medieval face!" He won the
Academy Award for Best Actor for his
1959 performance in the title role of
Ben-Hur, one of 11 earned by that film.
Heston also starred in various
science fiction films and
disaster films, some of which, like
Planet of the Apes,
The Omega Man,
Soylent Green, and
Earthquake, were hugely successful at the time of their release and have since become cult classics.
Heston fought at times for his artistic choices. In 1958, he maneuvered
Universal International into allowing
Orson Welles to direct him in
Touch of Evil, and in 1965 he fought the studio in support of
Sam Peckinpah, when an attempt was made to interfere with his direction of
Major Dundee, despite the fact that Peckinpah was so temperamental that at one point the normally even-keeled Heston found himself threatening the diminutive director with his cavalry sabre when he felt that Peckinpah was mistreating his cast. Heston was also president of the
Screen Actors Guild from 1966 to 1971.
In 1971 he made his directorial debut with
Antony and Cleopatra, an adaptation of the
William Shakespeare play that he had performed during his earlier theater career.
Starting with 1973's
The Three Musketeers, Heston began playing an increasing number of supporting roles and cameos. Despite this, his immense popularity has never died, and he has seen a steady stream of film and television roles ever since. He starred in the prime-time soap, "The Colbys" in 1985-1987, his only stint on series television. Heston has an instantly recognizable voice, and is often heard as a
narrator. Heston had cameos in the films "Tombstone" and "True Lies". With his son Fraser, he starred in and produced several made for cable movies, including remakes of "Treasure Island" and "A Man For All Seasons". Heston received great reviews for his 1992 series on the A&E cable network, "Charlton Heston Presents The Bible", which has achieved great success on video and DVD. In 1993, he appeared in a cameo role in
Wayne's World 2, in a scene wherein main character Wayne Campbell (
Mike Myers) requests that a small role be filled by a better actor than the performer currently filling it, and played a small part as a rancher in the Western
Tombstone (1993). That same year, he hosted
Saturday Night Live.
In 2001, Heston made a cameo appearance in
Tim Burton's
remake of Planet of the Apes. In the film, he plays an elderly, dying ape who introduces arms to his species by giving a rifle to another of the planet's inhabitants, perhaps as a nod to his then-current role in the
National Rifle Association.
Heston was diagnosed with
prostate cancer in 1998, and it went into
remission the next year following a course of
radiation treatment. In August 2002, Heston publicly announced that he was diagnosed as suffering from symptoms of
Alzheimer's disease.[
1] In July 2003, he received the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, from President
George W. Bush at the
White House. In March 2005, various newspapers reported that family and friends of Heston were apparently shocked by the rapid progression of his illness, and that he is sometimes unable to get out of bed. In August 2005, a rumor circulated that Heston had been hospitalized with
pneumonia at a Los Angeles hospital, but this was never confirmed by the family. In April 2006, various news sources reported that Heston's illness is at an advanced stage and his family are worried he may not survive the year.
Political beliefs
In his earlier years, Heston was a
Democrat, campaigning for Presidential candidates
Adlai Stevenson in 1956 and
John F. Kennedy in 1960. A
civil rights activist, he accompanied
Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights march held in
Washington, D.C. in 1963. In 1968, following the assassination of Senator
Robert F. Kennedy, Heston appeared on
The Joey Bishop Show and, along with fellow actors
Gregory Peck,
Kirk Douglas and
James Stewart, called for gun controls to be introduced by Congress. This incident was a cause of embarrassment to Heston when, thirty years later, he was elected President of the National Rifle Association of America. In 1969 Heston was asked by some Democrats to run for the California State Senate, a move that would have likely had bipartisan support in the state. He declined because he wanted to continue acting.
In the 1980s, however, Heston began to support more
conservative and
libertarian positions on such issues as
affirmative action and
gun rights. He has campaigned for Republican candidates and Presidents
Ronald Reagan,
George H.W. Bush and
George W. Bush.
|
Heston giving his well-known speech, when responding to those in favor of gun control, he proclaimed they would have to "pry it from my cold, dead hands". |
He is an honorary life member of the
National Rifle Association (NRA), and was its president and spokesman from 1998 until his resignation in 2003. As NRA president he is perhaps best known, while raising an antique
Sharps Rifle over his head at the 2000 NRA convention, for saying that presidential candidate
Al Gore would take away his
Second Amendment rights "from my cold, dead hands". (In announcing his resignation in 2003, he would again raise a rifle over his head, this time repeating only the famous five words of his 2000 speech.) Heston has been harshly criticized by advocates of gun control.
Michael Moore interviewed Heston in his home in the
2002 documentary film Bowling for Columbine asking questions of him regarding NRA meeting being held in
Denver,
Colorado in April 1999, shortly after the
Columbine high school massacre in nearby Littleton and the very publicized shooting and death of 6-year-old
Kayla Rolland in her first grade classroom near
Flint,
Michigan, Moore's home town. This scene in the movie is famous for Michael Moore presenting it in a way that implies that Charlton Heston, and indeed, the NRA are racist (Heston's comments more likely were meant to mean that racism, not the presence of minorities, was the cause of increasing levels of violence during the latter half of the 20th Century). Many of the festivities and activities of the convention in Denver were cancelled; an annual meeting was still held in compliance with NRA bylaws, as well as the applicable federal and New York state laws for a corporation such as the NRA, [
2], but Heston still gave a controversial speech despite the heightened sensitivity of the Denver and Littleton communities.
According to his autobiography
In the Arena, Heston also recognised the freedom of speech of others and the
First Amendment. He is also an opponent of
McCarthyism and
racial segregation, which he sees as only helping the cause of
Communism worldwide. He was opposed to the Vietnam War and considered Richard Nixon a disaster for America.
He is also an opponent of
abortion and gave the introduction to a
pro-life documentary by
Bernard Nathanson called "Eclipse of Reason" which focuses on late-term abortions. Heston also served on the Advisory Board of
Accuracy in Media (AIM), a conservative media watchdog group founded by the late Reed Irvine.
Despite his conservative political beliefs, Heston's long career in Hollywood has netted him friends and supporters from all political backgrounds.
Agamemnon Films
Charlton Heston is the chairman and co-founder of Agamemnon Films.
* In
Greece, his name is written as "Charlton Easton" because "Heston" has
scatological connotations in Greek (
χÎσ'τον = "shit him").
* He was unable to use his birth name, John Carter, as an actor because it bore too close a resemblance to the name of the hero in
Edgar Rice Burroughs' first novel
A Princess of Mars, which was in development at the time although the production fell through.
* Heston's portrayal of
Buffalo Bill in
Pony Express, a
western from early in his career, inspired the
Bills, a Congolese youth cult who idolized Western movies.
* He was reported to have been considered to play a
Jedi Master in the
Star Wars prequel films.
* Heston's most frequently played roles on stage include the title role in
Macbeth,
Sir Thomas More in
A Man For All Seasons, and
Marc Antony in both
Julius Caesar and
Antony and Cleopatra.
* He accepted the lead role in
Ben-Hur after
Burt Lancaster, another similarly tall, muscular, square jawed, blonde, blue eyed actor, turned it down. Lancaster, a self-described
atheist, wanted nothing to do with the film because he considered it a "piece of religious crap". Many years later, Lancaster charged that if Heston became typecast in heroic roles it was his own fault, because "he accepted the limitation". However, Lancaster later took on the role of as Moses in a TV version of Moses' life, after Heston had played the part in the 1956 film version.
* Heston's height as a young man was 6'3", although today he is only 5'9".
Heston has written several books, including autobiographies and religious books:
*
The Actor's Life (ISBN 0671830163)
*
In the Arena: An Autobiography (ISBN 157297267X)
*
Beijing Diary (ISBN 0671687069)
*
To Be a Man: Letters to My Grandson (ISBN 0743213114)
*
Charlton Heston Presents the Bible (ISBN 1577192702)
*
Charlton Heston's Hollywood: 50 Years in American Film with Jean-Pierre Isbouts (ISBN 1577193571)
Bowling for Columbine (
2002)
Papa Rua Alguem 5555 (2002)
The Order (2001)
Town & Country (2001)
Planet of the Apes (2001)
Any Given Sunday (1999)
Gideon (1999)
Armageddon (1998)
Hercules (1997) (special appearance)
Hamlet (1996)
Alaska (1996)
In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
True Lies (1994) (uncredited)
Tombstone (1993)
Wayne's World 2 (1993)
Symphony for the Spire (1992)
Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232 (1991)
Solar Crisis (1990)
The Little Kidnappers (1990) (TV)
Call from Space (1989) (voice)
Treasure Island (1989)
A Man for All Seasons (1988)
Christmas Night with the Two Ronnies (1987) (TV)
Proud Men (1987) (TV)
The Colbys (1985) TV Series (1985-1987) (TV)
Nairobi Affair (1984) (TV)
Chiefs (1983) (mini) TV Series
Mother Lode (1982)
The Awakening (1980)
The Mountain Men (1980)
Gray Lady Down (1978)
Crossed Swords (1978)
Midway (1976)
Two Minute Warning (1976)
The Last Hard Men (1976)
The Four Musketeers (1974)
Earthquake (1974)
Airport 1975 (1974)
The Three Musketeers (1973)
Soylent Green (1973)
Antony and Cleopatra (1973)
Call of the Wild (1972)
Skyjacked (1972)
The London Brige Special (1972)
The Omega Man (1971)
Julius Caesar (1970)
The Hawaiians (1970)
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
Number One (1969)
Will Penny (1968)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Counterpoint (1968)
Khartoum (1966)
The War Lord (1965)
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)
Major Dundee (1965)
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
55 Days at Peking (1963)
Diamond Head (1963)
The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962)
El Cid (1961)
Ben-Hur (1959)
The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959)
The Buccaneer (1958)
The Big Country (1958)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Three Violent People (1957)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
Lucy Gallant (1955)
The Private War of Major Benson (1955)
The Far Horizons (1955)
The Secret of the Incas (1954)
The Naked Jungle (1954)
Bad for Each Other (1953)
Arrowhead (1953)
Pony Express (1953)
The President's Lady (1953)
Ruby Gentry (1952)
The Savage (1952)
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
Dark City (1950)
Peer Gynt (1941)
* (Includes extensive trivia section)
*
Hollywood.com entry on Charlton Heston*
Yahoo Movies entry on Charlton Heston*
Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Charlton Heston* http://www.reelclassics.com/Actors/Heston/heston.htm
* http://charltonhestonworld.homestead.com/
