That was the first character who came to mind upon hearing the news that screen legend Charlton Heston had passed away April 5 at age 83 as a result of Alzheimer’s disease, with his wife of 64 years, Lydia Clark Heston, at his bedside.
It was always that biblical hero who defied Ramses and parted the Red Sea from “The Ten Commandments” (1956) who came to mind whenever I thought of the Oscar winning actor for “Ben-Hur” (1959). It is because ever since I was in grade school, watching “The Ten Commandments” every Easter on ABC was like a tradition.
Of course, Moses was not the only hero Heston portrayed on the big screen. Whereas Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner have often failed to convince audiences with their fake accents when portraying foreign characters, Heston was able to convince this Doubting Thomas, he could pass himself off as a Mexican narcotics official in Orson Welles film noir classic, “Touch of Evil” (1958). The crime drama was like a modern-day David versus Goliath; the little do-gooder against the likes of Welles 330-pound corrupt behemoth Sherriff Hank Quinlan. I don’t think I need to tell you in the end who won.
Fans of the sci-fi genre most likely recall Heston’s role as the lone astronaut Taylor in “Planet of the Apes” (1968) reciting that famous line of his “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!”
I admit I was never much of a fan of the “Apes” series despite the fact I loathed the idea of Hollywood doing a remake of the classic decades later in 2001. Thankfully, Heston, in a tribute to his presidency of the National Rifleman’s Association, made a clever cameo appearance as a dying ape who just happens to be only one of two primates on the planet to own a rifle.
Looking back on his film career, Heston followed the same routine when it came to choosing the kinds of roles John Wayne often did. He was always the leader; the good guy who you could always count on knowing that things would be ok in the end. Decades before Will Smith conquered the box office trying to find a cure to a deadly virus in last year’s end of the world remake, “I Am Legend” (2007), it was Heston who was “The Omega Man” (1971); humanity’s last hope of author Richard Matheson’s sci-fi novel.
We knew, for example, that stewardess Karen Black and the passengers of a damaged, pilotless 747 would be safe the moment his character stepped in the captain’s chair in “Airport 1975” (1974). We knew he’d find out what that secret ingredient was in “Soylent Green” (1973).
Most of the time his character always lived, rarely dying on screen which he did at his behest in “Earthquake” (1974) and the WWII war movie “Midway” (1976).
When he wasn’t busy playing the big screen hero, Heston played the hero off screen fighting for such worthy causes as Civil Rights, something he later admitted wishing he had done more back in the 1960s. His hectic film schedule kept him from doing so.
Like Ronald Reagan, Heston started out as a Democrat opposing McCarthyism, racial segregation, and the Vietnam War. He admitted in his 1995 autobiography, “In the Arena”, that his political views began moving to the right when Lyndon Johnson campaigned to become president in 1964.
What I admired most about him was the way he never faltered from his political beliefs. When it came to guns, Heston summed it up best with a comment that is still relevant today considering the recent mass shootings.
“There are no good guns,” he said. “There are no bad guns. A gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a good man is no threat to anyone, except bad people.”
My favorite controversial line of his is not the infamous “You can take my rifle ... when you pry it from my cold dead hands!” however. It is what he said about President Clinton.
"America didn't trust you with their health-care system, America didn't trust you with gays in the military, America doesn't trust you with our 21-year-old daughters. And we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns."
Heston, a former World War II veteran, always knew how to counterattack someone whenever a fellow actor uttered an unkind remark, and keep his composure and humor.
When George Clooney made a joke about Heston’s illness, the actor commented "It's funny how class can skip a generation, isn't it?"
When Heston made that fateful announcement public in August 2002 that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s, he did just what you expect a “hero” to do; confront the debilitating disease head-on.
"What cannot be cured must be endured," he later said in a December 2002 interview.
When it comes to movie heroes, we’ll always have characters like Indiana Jones and the yearly assortment of superheroes from the Marvel and DC Comics franchises who we know full well will prevail in the end.
Today’s actors only play heroes a few times. What made Charlton Heston unique was he always played the role on both the big screen and off and he did it well.
Don’t accept anything Hollywood makes as the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
That’s my advice to anyone who sees a film or one-sided documentary supposedly truthfully based on a historical subject or real-life person.
That was my advice to anyone after witnessing the negative reactions audience members exhibited about President Bush after seeing Michael Moore’s one-sided Bush bashing documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” back in 2004, which I call nothing more than a tragic comedy.
That is my advice now upon learning Oscar winning director Oliver Stone’s plans to make an upcoming film about our current president titled “W.” (2008), which starts shooting late this month for a possible release this fall; just in time for the 2008 presidential election.
I could not believe how stupid and gullible people could be, in particular, the ones in high school and college who I heard saying how they will never vote Republican again as a result of what they learned from Moore’s so-called documentary.
It will probably be those same “skulls full of mush” who probably embrace the idea of Hollywood going on yet another Bush bashing tirade with Stone leading the way.
Several questions raced through my mind after hearing about Stone’s project. The first is, “Who would see it?” We have had “Dubya” for eight years in the White House. Do we need a three-hour plus movie recounting all the untruths that went on during his presidency with what might as well be called “The Gospel According to Oliver Stone?”
I should scratch that question off. I already know who will see the film. The very same people who I have heard for eight years say they hate Bush but cannot so much as to list a single reason as to why. I have no doubt it is those same people who cannot recount a single thing Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama achieved as senator. All they can say is “I want Hillary for president because she is a woman and it’s time for a woman president” and “I want Obama in the White House because I want change.”
At least I can offer some solid reasons why I haven’t been too happy with President Bush the past eight years. I do not believe, for example, his stimulus checks will fix the economy, which is not as bad off as the liberal press wants you to believe. I do not agree with his proposals to help homeowners in the housing market. It’s the homeowner’s problem that they can’t pay their mortgages, not the government’s.
While I do agree that something needed to be done about former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, I don’t believe Gulf War II had anything to do with 9/11 nor do I believe the Bush administration had an exit strategy on how to get us out of Iraq. I still to an extent believe this war is all about oil, much like the first Gulf War.
That is, however, more reasons than what I have heard from Bush-bashers.
Stone claims his movie, which stars Josh Brolin in the title role as “Dubya” will be a fair and balanced portrait. Given his track record of previous controversies that have won critical acclaim (“JFK” (1991), “Nixon” (1995), “World Trade Center” - 2006), however, I believe that about as much as I believe Hillary Clinton’s claim she heard gunshots being aimed at her while on a trip in Bosnia back in 2000 or Barack Obama say that he not once heard his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, utter racist comments and damning America over the past 20 years.
In the description of Stone’s film found in an article in Entertainment Weekly, ''W.” is the improbable story of a man who went to the White House despite getting fewer votes than his opponent; who became commander-in-chief despite having avoided military combat himself; and who became the least popular president ever elected to a second term. “W.” will shock and surprise you and leave you questioning everything you believe to be true.''
It has already been proven more than once that Bush did in fact win in 2000.
As the saying goes, “Controversy sells.” That is the only reason most movies today that embellish historical subjects win critical acclaim, clean up at the box office and in some cases receive and win Oscar nominations.
If Hollywood cared to tell the story truthfully, no one would see it and it would get very few endorsements from critics. A few films have in fact, flopped at the box office because they attempted to get the story right such as “Tora, Tora, Tora” (1970) about the attack on Pearl Harbor and most recently the remake of “The Alamo” (2004), which had no sense of Texas patriotism that John Wayne’s 1960 epic had.
If people wanted to get the story on how it really happened, they would read the book.
They’d much rather believe the first officer of the Titanic, William Murdoch, responsible for the disaster accepted a bribe and shot and killed a couple of passengers trying to get into a lifeboat before turning the gun on himself as the ship sank in James Cameron’s Oscar winning 1997 movie, as opposed to what was written in the history books. He went down with the ship. The only reason Hollywood chose to tell a lie in this case was because it made for better drama no matter how that person’s family might feel as to how he was being portrayed on the big screen.
It will be the same reaction when “W.” is released next year. They will accept the viewpoints of a radical movie director over the countless articles and books that have already been written about President George W. Bush and his presidency.
Movies are made to entertain and that includes those based on historical subjects. I hope that Stone’s “W.” will get people inspired to read a book on the subject to get the real story as opposed to accepting what they are seeing on the big screen as the real thing.
