End Of Another Chapter

Another chapter in Hollywood's history is closed. Charlton Heston, who epitomised larger-than-life characters on screen has now joined the greats like Cecil B. De Mille, Clark Gable and Gary Cooper. There are now only a handful left who took part in Hollywood before it was taken over by the film school graduates and the Hate-America-First crowd.

Charlton Heston played a wide range of characters, historical, mythical and archetypal. Moses, El Cid, Judah Ben-Hur, General Gordon of Khartoum, and even the greatest pirate of them all, Long John Silver. He worked in epics, westerns, science fiction, crime dramas; any genre that offered a part, because as an actor, work was the breath of life.

There are no actor's in today's Hollywood capable of leaving such a vivid impression long after the movie has ended. For Moses, the best they could come up with recently was Dougray Scott. (Dougray?) As Norma Desmond said, it is the pictures that got small.

Like John Wayne Charlton Heston loved his country. He worked for Civil Rights when the likes of Al Gore, Senior, and other Democrats, filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He stood up for American rights while Danny Glover hugged Fidel Castro and Ed Asner said Joseph Stalin was merely misunderstood. Heston supported the Constitution while Political Correctness eroded freedom of speech.

Chuck Heston refused to take himself too seriously. He was very well-read and was also a writer. He also stood up for artists who had fallen out of favor in Hollywood. He would not make Touch of Evil unless Orson Welles directed, for example.

Once upon a time, long ago, Hollywood made movies the participants could be proud of, movies among the best in the world. Charlton Heston was a part of that age, and he has now gone. But behind, he has left a body of work well worth watching.

Among Charlton Heston movies I have found memorable are El Cid, Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Show On Earth, Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers, Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes, Will Penny, The President's Lady and The Buccaneer (as Andrew Jackson), The Naked Jungle and The Big Country.