Kudos to Chuck

When all was said and done and the NRA aside, Charlton Heston was always a talented, confident and resourceful actor. He always brought it home; knew how to sell it. The non-verbal conviction be brought to this scene from The Big Country — those looks of intense resentment and lingering loyalty for his boss, played by the blustery Charles Bickford — are what make it work. They’re the emotional bedrock.

21 thoughts on “Kudos to Chuck

  1. “Emotional bedrock.” You got that exactly right. One of the reasons why you don’t see personality-driven epics like Ben Hur or El Cid any more is that few actors today have the kind of gravitas necessary to anchor such a film. There’s Russell Crowe and…..?

    Heston’s acting may have been mannered, but it was absolutely perfect for the kinds of roles he played.

  2. The moment I turned on Michael Moore was the cheap-shot attempt at a “gotcha” moment when he sandbagged Heston. The man paid his dues in the 60′s long before it was fashionable.

  3. I’m a fan of several Heston roles, but my favorite has to be “Will Penny”. Very down to earth and different than his (admittedly good) hero stuff. He sold it perfectly IMO.

  4. He didn’t have the greatest range, as they say, but what he was good at he owned. He had the voice. Look at Branagh’s Hamlet – Branagh, Gielgud, Jacobi, Winslet and he took them all to school. At least that day he did.

    I were some moments in the Return of the King where Mortensen was not quite pulling it off and I found myself thinking, “Heston would have killed in this. This is where he lived.”

  5. My family knew the Hestons in the late 1940s, when he was beginning work on the New York stage; they kept in touch, and he sent us Christmas cards for many years. From the ’70s on, we didn’t care much for his politics, but we still appreciated him as an actor and as a person.

    Let’s also remember that Heston was an effective president of the Screen Actors Guild and marched with Martin Luther King for civil rights. Painting him as a right-wing gun nut doesn’t do him justice.

  6. As long as he stuck to what he was good at — like acting, I could love him. I’m with Pauline Kael on Heston….she always had a fairly solid admiration for him. I prefer to believe that he had Alzheimers when he went crazy for the NRA. It’s the only way I can forgive him for being a tool of this fascist organization.

  7. Even it’s more legend than truth, I love the

    story that he got so pissed off at Sam Peckinpah

    during “Major Dundee”, he charged after

    Peckinpah with his prop cavalry sword still

    in hand….

    And let’s not forget “The Naked Jungle”…

    …how many actors could take on 1 billion

    South American army ants…..and make you feel that the ants were outnumbered.

  8. My lovely wife was a huge Heston fan when we began dating. She said if there was a god, that’s what he would sound like.

  9. I’m mildly sympathetic to the right to bear arms folks on the broad term, but the NRA can kiss my ass – they don’t do a damn thing really toward helping gun owners or offering education, they exist EXCLUSIVELY to corral and frighten gun owners into voting for the GOP.

    I think Heston was, to an extent, “used” by them – they didn’t want him for his expertise, they wanted “The Voice.” That’s not to say he didn’t sometimes go overboard in his role, but the man has A LIFETIME of good works to show that he was NOT the creep the NRA had him acting as toward the end.

  10. Chuck Heston was my boyhood hero. No one now can touch him for “epic” parts. Brad Pitt in “Troy”? Give me a break. Collin Farrell in “Alexander”? Are you kidding me? “Ben Hur” still stands above them all. The acting duel between Chuck and Stephen Boyd early in the movie in the courtyard is just as electrifying in its own way as the still peerless chariot race. What “Ben Hur” had was FEELING, thanks to William Wyler too. You don’t see that kind of integrity in films anymore. We’ve become too cynical and “ironic” to embrace that kid of emotion in film.

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