Weird that ABC has "The Ten Commandments" as its yearly Easter film, when its really Heston's other most famous (and only Oscar-winning) role- that of Judah Ben-Hur- in "Ben-Hur" that is actually about the events surrounding Easter.

His acting Soylent Green seemed pretty genuine, "A sweaty cop who steals stuff and has sex with a woman involved in a case." Nice...

Anyways, Jim Hill is right. He's not necessarily the best actor, but he does great in a post apocalyptic or a dystopia environment in movies. Omega Man, Soylent Green... great films.

First of all, Chuck was a class act in every respect. A true gentleman and a very relaxed, fun person--in that respect in some ways unlike the larger-than-life people he played in the movies. I'll miss him, as will all who knew him and worked with him.

Secondly, there's an interesting anecdote he tells in his autobiography (which you should ALL get and read as it's truly one of the best "Hollywood memoires" ever done) about his performance in "The Greatest Show On Earth"---he got the part when, having just been signed as a contract player, he drove across the Paramount lot and was seen by DeMille who asked an assistant to find out who he was because he liked his look. Later, when the film became a huge hit, Chuck tells of how DeMille called him into his office. The great moviemaker told him "Here, Chuck, is the best review you will ever get in your entire career." And Heston explains why the man was right. It was a letter from a fan--DeMille actually read his fan mail--just a simple moviegoer out there, who said in his letter something like this: "Mr. DeMille, you really did a wonderful film, but the best part was how that guy who's the circus manager was so good up there with all those movie stars."

In other words, Heston's performance made that fan think he was REALLY the circus boss, cast for his expertise, since, as an unknown at that time, he wasn't recognizeable as an actor, let alone a star. It was, indeed, Heston agreed, his best ever reivew. So much for dismissing a man who played parts in historical epics, mostly, and played everyone from President Andrew Jackson to Michelangelo to Moses, as a 'scenery chewing' performer. Different times, different styles, and so many great performances.

Among them, btw, I'd suggest everyone rent the amazingly vivid western "The Big Country" for his great role as the ranch foreman and the amazingly great fight scene with Gregory Peck in that film. A true classic (also featuring Burl Ives in a great character role, btw, and the ever-wonderful Audrey Hepburn, too.) and, for Chuck's greatest western performance, "Will Penny" which he numbered among his personal favorites.

His recent notoriety for political reasons alienated many, but that's largely a creation of the media AND of the fact that his prestige, impact on people through his performances, and "authority" aspects that playing such big characters gave him made him a feared opponent by his political adversaries and one they felt they had to attack and tear down.

At any rate, speaking as one who knew him a little, trust me: This was a gentleman, a 'regular guy' under all that star power, and somebody we'll all miss and, thanks to the permanence of film, enjoy for centuries to come.

Charlton Heston.

I was in Florida when they filmed MIDWAY.....NAS Pensacola played several military bases in the film,primarily Pearl Harbor... the USS LEXINGTON (at that time, still active and homeported there as a training carrier) played all the aircraft carriers in the film, even the Japanese ones...heck, the Imperial Gardens at the start of the film were shot in San Francisco's Japanese Tea Gardens.....anyhoo, we had been sitting around the "Pearl Harbor Office Pool" of background players when Messr. Heston comes over and has a cup of coffee with us (most of the stars would hang out with the uniformed folk in the area a time or two...Dabney Coleman had lunch with us one day....) and, a lot of the star-struck individuals started gushing over him and his films. He kinda smiled and thanked everyone, then turned to me and asked me which of his films I enjoyed his acting in. I said, "two, and, that he had really only acted in two." (I'm not really a Heston fan, per se...) Well, he raises an eyebrow (and the rest of the extras are in shock over this, how dare this simple woman make such a statement to a star of Heston's reknown...)

The two films I answered were - Heston's first major starring role - an adaptation of the short story, "Leinigen Vs. The Ants"...it was his portrayl in this role that set the tone for all of the roles he was to play that followed...and, that after that first film, he was no longer "Acting" but, playing the image the studios created for him...similar to what happened to John Wayne and other heroic leading men....As for his second time "acting" - and, the film that I really enjoyed him in was the "Musketeer" movies as Cardinal Richilieu...in which he got to show how much he really could act in a role that wasn't a traditional departure for him...and, that I hoped he would pick up more of the character and fringe roles to allow him to exercise his acting chops to the fullest ability and stop being locked in the same role for film after film.

I sipped my coffee. Heston's eyes met mine and he gave me that famous "Steel-face gaze". He sipped his coffee. I sipped mine and looked back.  He then grinned and chickled. "You're absolutely right." He said. "And, I had more fun doing Richilieu than anything I've done in the last twenty years just because of that very fact. Next year I get to play King Henry", he burbled, just like a young lad with a new toy, "that's going to be fun, too!"

He took another sip on his coffee. "I wish more people in the system could see the way you do," he sighed. He took another sip of his coffee. "This stuff is too damn hot", he exclaimed, and placed the mug on a desk. He then took his two hands and placed them outstretched and side by side, palms down, next to each other. curling back the rest of his fingers so that only the two index fingers remained pointing outwards, he then started re-creating his famous moment as Moses from "Ten Commandments" when he "parted" the Red Sea".  The director walked by and looked at Heston. "Chuck," he laughed. Heston looked up and winked at all of us. "Oh, sorry, wrong movie....",he said.  Then he and the director ambled back to the lights and cameras of MIDWAY....

A moment in my life I'll remember forever....

God rest Your Soul, Charlton Heston. You were a good man.

When it came on the news, Alice said, "Isn't that that jerk from Bowling for Columbine?"

Yep.

No, Alice. The jerk from "Bowling for Columbine" was Michael Moore.

But I digress.....

For the record, Chuck did a LOT of live theater, especially in the later half of his career, most notably a fantastic and acclaimed production of "Macbeth"--and got to exercise his "chops" that way when Hollywood insisted on the "image" roles.

Yes, I miss Chuck as well. My favorite performance of is his understated role as Cardinal Richelieu in "The Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers" (1973 & 1974). So much better than the scenery-chewing performance by Tim Curry in the 1993 version. Not that Heston never hammed it up in practically every other role he played.

An to Ctman: "The Ten Commandments" significance in a spring broadcast is that it falls around Passover, which is part of the plot of that film.

Rest in Peace.

Great article, boss.  Particularly enjoyed the (remarkably on-model!) character costumes from GSOE.  And I had just been telling Mom about Bing & Bob's cameo in the stands and there it was!

My good friend Joe Zimmer had Charlton and Family on his Jungle Cruise launch years ago. The kids and Mom were sitting up front while Dad was brooding alone in the back of the boat.  As they drew alongside the gorilla encampment, Joe hollered, "Get your stinkin' paws off my stuff, you damn dirty apes!"

Moses had a good laugh over that.

Planet of The Apes: One of the greatest endings ever!  I remember sneaking to the bottom of the stairs to watch glimpses of it the first time it was on television.  That ending gave me nightmares.  It was worth it.

"THEY BLEW IT UP!!!"

R.I.P.

This isn't related to Charlton Heston, but I just wanted to say that the 1950s-era Disney costumes in the article scare the CRAP out of me.  Hello, nightmares!

I 'll miss Mr. Heston for two reasons. Firstly, because of "Planet of the Apes" . It was absolutely one of my favoeites as a kid and remeber watching every time it aired. I haven't seen it in a while now, but I think I will watch it soon.

The other reason is because he represents one of the stable of stars from the old studio system of Hollywood. He was one of the classic stars, regardless of his acting prowess, that are quicly leaving us and being replaced by far worse actors than he.

Re "Apes" a side-note. If you've never read the book or any of the other works of the amazing author Pierre Boulle, you should. In a writing career that had such wide range it truly amazes--believe it or not this Frenchman wrote not only the original and inspired "Planet of the Apes" but also the book on which the film "The Bridge On The River Kwai" was based---his sci-fi was his real triumph. IF you can find it, get a book of his sci-fi short stories called "Time Out Of Mind" which contains thoughts about time travel, future society, and even the first couple in space to have zero-g sex! (Hilariously written because if you follow the rule of every action having an equal and opposite reaction into the concept of two people trying to get CLOSER to each other in zero-g where such things cause separation...well, its really skillful writing, even in the English translation!)

The other little movie trivia note about the films is that when they became a "franchise" and one of the later ones had a huge ape-vs.-human fight/riot scene shot at night at a shopping mall, the mall used was Century City in west L.A. which was built, as was its entire self-named Alcoa-built complex of office buildings, shops, condos, and the Century Plaza Hotel, on land that was once the back lot of 20th Century Fox (the "century" in the City) before the studio went broke making "Cleopatra" and had to sell off the majority of its land--which was, of course, a film about Julius Caesar's Rome....the same civilization that gave Chuck Heston so much trouble in "Ben-Hur" and, later, as Michelanglo painting the Sistine, too. Talk about 6-degrees-of-Charleton-Heston! (Smile)

Oh, one more thing about those Disney heads and characters--of course, ONLY an animated film like Alice, that took years and years to draw and produce, would create the opportunity for a "preview" within another film like this. The fact that Alice was released after "The Greatest Show On Earth" was a very interesting point, but of course the character designs, which while based on the old illustrations of the Alice books but still "Disneyfied" for their film, had been done long before "Greatest Show" even went into production, and while I don't know this to be a fact, I'd be interested to know if the tie-in was movie-to-movie or whether Disney had managed a "product placement" character license deal with Ringling Bros, not DeMille, and DeMille was merely using the reality of the Circus's current show for his film.

RE. the Circus, I recall Chuck telling another story in his book about making that film. The Hollywood people, and especially the one-picture-prior-to-this young actor Heston, were in AWE of the regal and powerful Cecil B. DeMille whose "clout" in the biz was unequalled at that time, but the CIRCUS people, who were impressed by NObody, just didn't give him the same level of respect. Heston talks about how DeMille would get up on a high platform with his megaphone and address the company before a big scene was to be shot, sometimes going on a bit longer than the circus folks had patience for. He talks about one such instance where, as the crowd was settling down to quiet to get another such pre-scene DeMille lecture, one of the circus girls was heard saying to another in a voice that carried louder than the softening hubbub, "I wonder when the old fart's gonna call 'Lunch' ?"

The group hushed, aghast, and waited because DeMille visibly had heard the comment. He waited for total silence, put the megaphone to his lips, and said one word. "Lunch."

And that was HIS sense of humor. A great showman indeed, he was famous for having a huge staff of actual historians and anthropologists to research all the costumes, sets, and props for his period films so they'd be historically accurate because he felt he had an obligation to educate as well as entertain his audiences and also felt the actors would perform more like the famous of history they were portraying if they were surrounded by as authentic a set of surroundings as possible. HOWEVER....he was also a showman, and when his researchers told him that the scanty costumes he'd had planned for some "vestal virgins" in a wild temple scene in one of his early epics were inaccurate because the REAL vestal virgins wore very demure and body-covering duds, he smiled and said "We're making a movie, not a documentary. We'll keep the costumes my way, thanks."

Okay, one more bit of VERY obscure trivia that reading the article brought to mind. That photo from the TV Guide ad for "The Ten Commandments" shows Chuck as Moses being hassled by the wonderful actress Anne Baxter as, if I recall, Pharoh's daughter. Well, guess who SHE is related to? Believe it or not, Anne Baxter, who had a HUGE career on stage and screens (big and small) was the GRAND-daughter of.....famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright! And now you know the REST of the story (apologies to Paul Harvey!)

@ JohnWayne

Er, Audrey Heburn wasn't in The Big Country!  I think maybe you mean the wonderful Jean Simmons?

However, I do agree it was a great movie all around, even if the music could be a little overblown.  Jean and Gregory Peck make a great on-screen couple.  The whole film has one of the best ensemble casts in Hollywood history.

Oopsy, Right you are. THIS "old fart" of the movies had a brain one. And let's not forget Chuck Connors great role as the sleazy weak bully son of Burl.

Oh, and another GREAT western of Chuck Heston's that I omitted to my regret was "Major Dundee" -- one of Sam Peckinpaugh's grittiest and one of Heston's most anit-heroic hero roles.

" As they drew alongside the gorilla encampment, Joe hollered, "Get your stinkin' paws off my stuff, you damn dirty apes!"

Moses had a good laugh over that."

That gave me a good laugh too - thanks for sharing!

I think Heston was one of the last classic Hollywood actors.  Not the best or beautiful, but certainly unforgettable.  RIP.

Another Connection:

I saw Charlton Heston at (then) Disney/MGM Studios.  He was doing a book-signing.  I believe it was at the "Legends of Hollywood" store.  I do not remember the year or the book, but could it have been his autobiography?