Defamer
Charlton Heston, whose turns in epics including The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur reset the leading-man standard in Hollywood and who later won all of our hearts as the president of the National Rifle Association, died Saturday in Beverly Hills. He was 83. A family spokesman declined to specify a cause of death, but Heston had been suffering from "symptoms similar to those of Alzheimer's disease" since 2002.
The 1950s belonged to Heston, an Evanston, Ill., native whose early roles as historical figures like Marc Antony (Julius Caesar) and Buffalo Bill (Pony Express) presaged more massive-scale work for directors Cecil B. DemIlle (The Greatest Show on Earth, The Ten Commandments) and William Wyler, who directed Heston to an Oscar in 1959's Ben-Hur. Heston notably (if unconvincingly) portrayed a Mexican narcotics detective in Orson Welles' noir classic Touch of Evil, moving on a decade later to the campy sci-fi allegories Planet of the Apes (1968), The Omega Man (1971) and Soylent Green (1973).
Despite stirring bit turns in Wayne's World 2 and the 2001 Apes remake, Heston's stint as the president of the National Rifle Association was perhaps his defining accomplishment of the last decade; waving a musket you could "pry from my cold, dead hands," his 2000 speech to his NRA constituency provoked Michael Moore's humiliating Heston-estate visit in Bowling For Columbine, among Heston's last and least-auspicious screen appearances. We at Defamer prefer to remember the better times, which is why we bring you a trailer for one of the underrated gems in the Heston oeuvre. Rest in peace, Chuck.
Comments
Check your guns at the Golden Gate. And Goodnight.
"A family spokesman declined to specify a cause of death..."
I'm gonna go with old age.
Finally, I can take his gun!
Wait, he wasn't gay?
From SOYLENT GREEN.
Huston knew Robinson really was dying. Its probably one of his finest acting turns on film.
Damn, it wouldn't let me post.
Go to You Tube and look for Soylent Green: "Sol Goes Home"
+ Watch video
@Campion:
Oh, that's so mean. I love you.
He did make it possible for Orson Welles to direct Touch Of Evil. And, coming soon, a new flavor of Soylent Green.
@Oldboy:
it's called "Right-Wingut Jerkey"... Likey?
i know... little salty huh?
I hear his entire collection of toupee's had to be euthanised by the SPCA.
@HappyBlues: Nope, just shot.
And in a final bit of irony, Heston passes through the Pearly Gates of Heaven, only to discover that God is an ape.
I suppose now you can pry that gun from his cold dead hand now huh.
@hissykitty: Campion beat you to it dude!
@Old No.7: That, on the other hand, was entirely novel.
Chuck Heston, truly one of the greats.
We'll miss you deeply.
Meanwhile some people here are having fun throwing anti-right wing comments around; ironic in that you don't see the right dancing on the graves of left-wingers when they pass on.
Fairly dismissive of the guy, and naturally nobody mentioned his civil rights work in the 50s and 60s -- that doesn't fit in with the Muzak, does it? Evidently, he doesn't rate the breathless solemnity of a true great like...Heath Ledger.
He was 83. A family spokesman declined to specify a cause of death...
This reminds me of a Golden Girls quote uttered after one of Sophia's friends dies. It goes something like this -
Rose - How did she die?
Dorothy - A skydiving accident - SHE WAS NINETY-THREE ROSE!
@cinerama: Well, as Defamer tends to be a relatively non-overtly-political zone, I'm willing to bet that most of us didn't actually pick a jersey on this one and that "wing" doesn't really come into it (aside of the obvious "*nut").
The film roles were iconic, the Alzheimer's was sad, and the gun-fever was (and is) highly mockable.
You build your legacy when you're alive. You don't get the stupid stuff erased just because you inevitably die.
While I agree with the poster who pointed out that the right doesn't dance on the graves of the left when they die, it is not ironic.
Finding out God is an ape, however, would be.
Quickly! Someone pry the gun from his cold dead hand!
Ahh forget his gun, I've got dibs on his album collection.,
"Get your stinking paws off me you...oh, sorry honey."
"You can pry this dinner tray from my cold dead hands!"
"Honey, this dinner, it's MADE FROM PEOPLE!"
@cinerama: Yeah, nobody in Miami will throw a party when Castro dies.
@cinerama: Oh please get fucked.
at least he died as he lived:
old.
@MCU: That was a good update of the classic Shakespeare line about "the good men do is oft interred with their bones while the evil lives on after them." Or something like that.
@MCU: Yeah, but the good stuff seems to get erased. Heston was a vocal opponent of segregation, a strong supporter of Martin Luther King, and, in the years following RFK's assassination, actually stumped for stronger gun control. a
Can we just write the last couple of decades off as Alzheimer's-related?
@cinerama: What the fuck are you talking about? I don't see a single anti right wing comment - unless you want to count pointing out that Heston's hands are now finally cold and dead. And where did you ever get the notion that conservative douchebags don't say nasty disrespectful shit when someone from the left side of the spectrum dies?
While his views on gun control were deluded, and his shilling for the neo-cons unfortunate, most of his films were hilarious and campy, and I enjoyed them.
Ah, the best revenge is to live well and die surrounded by family, friends and the best firearms money can buy.
@kifbox: You're kidding right. ...I hope you are.
That's three. Can we get a fourth?
@cinerama: No, you just see right-wingers dancing on *all* graves, regardless of partisanship, if it will make their point ... see Jerry Falwell after 9/11 or those who stigmatize AIDS. I don't see much anti-anything here, but at least those who criticized Heston during his lifetime were doing so out of honest intellectual disagreement with his policies, not grave-dancing demagoguery.
@Omelas: And I don't mean to be harsh against right-wingers -- just zealots of any stripe who use tragedy as a chance to score cheap points. All I mean is that I don't see much of that going on, from either side of the aisle, here.
While there are certain folks who say some unfortunate things - I'll see your Jerry Falwell and raise you Obama's Rev. Wright - there's still more dancing upon the grave of Mr. Heston at left wing sites than there is on right wing sites after the death of someone associated with the left.
As far as Heston's views on gun control and conservatism being deluded, I'd say the same about the incessant babbling of Ed Asner and Babs Streisand.
If you want to talk about things like the sped-up film as Heston gets out of the car in Omega Man or his voiceover in Armageddon that's fine. :-)
All I can say is that he now knows whether his portrayal of Moses was accurate. :-)
we'll never know if he was a breech-loader or a muzzle-loader…will we Dr Cornelius???
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