Charlton Heston is DEAD

This is a very sad day, as news of the Death of Charlton Heston spreads around the world. He was one of the greatest actors America has ever produced in my humble opinion, and even though he was associated with the right wing conservative causes like the second amendment, he was a progressive throughout much of his life. In have been to many sources this morning and early afternoon, trying to put together a proper tribute for such a great man, and hope it does him justice.

I know for me the defining Heston film is The Omega Man, as it is one of my top five favorite films, as well as being in my top three favorite books (though it was originally titled "I Am Legend", and had been a Vincent Price film in the 50's~~Heston did it Better!). I realize he did other Big things, but for me this was the epitomy of his Best work and made Robert Neville and the reality of the End of Our World all too Real!

Charlton Heston's life story reads like a film script. From the backwoods of Michigan, he became one of the world's most famous faces, a high-profile campaigner for Civil Rights and an unapologetic president of America's National Rifle Association.

He was born John Charles Carter in Evanston, Illinois.
He studied acting before serving for three years in the US Air Force.

Back in civilian life, Heston and his wife, Lydia, went through hard times, while waiting for his first break as an actor. Living in a single room in Chicago, at one time they posed for artists, at $1.25 an hour, before Heston finally attracted Hollywood's attention.

In 1952, after working on Broadway, Heston starred as the ringmaster in the movie, The Greatest Show on Earth. Four years later, he appeared as Moses in The Ten Commandments, the role which would define his career.
Physically imposing at six foot four, with granite-hewn features and a deep, sonorous voice, he radiated screen presence.
No role was too big for Heston. In The Greatest Story Ever Told, he was John the Baptist; he played El Cid, along with Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy and General Gordon in Khartoum.

And, in 1959, he won an Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in Ben-Hur.
On stage, he was Sir Thomas More in A Man for all Seasons, Macbeth and Antony in Antony and Cleopatra.

Although later identified with traditionally conservative causes, Charlton Heston was a vocal supporter of Martin Luther King and the 1960s Civil Rights movement.
After King's assassination, and the murder of Robert Kennedy, Heston called for gun controls. He later said that he was "misguided".

The science fiction film, Planet of the Apes, proved a big commercial success in the late 1960s, and Heston almost became a fixture in 1970s disaster movies like Earthquake and Skyjacked.
And his big-screen performance in the environmentally-tinged sci-fi thriller, Soylent Green, brought him cult status among a younger audience.
As noted at the beginning of this tribute, Charlton Heston's premier role for me was as Colonel Robert Neville, in The Omega Man in 1971 was his greatest film, and below is a review/synopsis of the film:

In The Omega Man, Robert Neville (Heston) is the last man on Earth, surviving by scavenging the desiccated remains of a plague-wasted city. Before the Armageddon, which battered the biosphere with nuclear and biological weapons, Neville was a military research physician, a Renaissance man of the technological age. Now he is a post-holocaust hunter-gatherer, his lonely, three-year routine comprised of food-foraging over dusty shelves and shooting the Family. The last man on Earth, yes, but not alone.

The Family are virtually neo-humans: they are the blighted survivors of a global plague that mutated humans into extremely photophobic, generously psychotic albinos. Few in number, perhaps 300, they huddle their unbalanced minds 'round the debatable stability of their zealot-dictator, Matthias (Zerbe). With quasi-religious fervor and gestalt, the Family haunts the city's night, sweeping through hospitals, universities, libraries and museums, burning all of the legacies of technology and the old age. They also seek to purge themselves of Neville and hunt him regularly, for, unmarred by plague, he is a vessel for all the knowledge, science and civilization that the Family believes poisoned the old life.

Thus, the rhythm of Neville's world is inexorably ruled by light and dark. With the sun high, he hunts the Family and roots through the city for the dislocated acmes of science and art, hauling them back to his fortified brownstone haven. Every day is brutal, dull, identical--until the last man discovers he is not the only human left, and his blood may hold salvation for a doomed, diseased world.

The Omega Man, based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, can legitimately be considered an SF Easter film. Its predominant themes of sin, deliverance, sacrifice and resurrection are high-minded and ambitious, as well as nicely balanced and executed. One of the film's neater ironies is Neville's twin aspects--destroyer and savior.

As part of the military-medical complex, he was a member of the brain-trust that created disease for martial purposes. Yet Neville is also salvation, for his blood contains plague antibodies derived from an experimental serum he developed and used on himself. He is too late to save the bulk of the people his previous work imperiled, but he has the potential to save the pitiful handfuls that are left. He is redeemer and redeemed.

This production is both evenly paced and plotted, and it manages a subtle emotional power. For example, the film devotes much time to illustrating Neville's post-apocalyptic lifestyle and last-man psyche. When he finally meets another soul, then is introduced to over a half-dozen more, the appearance of those new faces is overwhelming. The emotional onus of an omega man is further underscored by the band's speaking of their numbers as paltry, whereas Neville's rapturous countenance beams his newfound wealth.

The film definitely has a hokey aura, generated primarily by: a) the fact that this is an SF film starring Charlton Heston; b) the rather lackluster makeup job on the albinised Family; c) the twang and tang of an easy listening/Action Jackson hybrid 70s soundtrack; and d) the final vignette. Let potential audiences not be deterred. Parts of The Omega Man might taste a little gamey to the average consumer, but the gourmand will find it well-seasoned and rightly aged.

There is so much of this film that I like: Neville's home as a fortress-island of art and science; Rosalind Cash's strong, blaxploitation edge; the Family's use of City Hall (with all its imprimatur) as a nest; the film's exploration of the question as to whether the Family can be saved by the serum, i.e., whether they are still human. And of course, no one can say "My God!" like Heston.
This was an awesome film and should be watched by everyone, to remember the state of mind of this nation in the early 70's, as we were still in Vietnam, still had a Hot~Cold War, and still did practice nuclear attack drills in school, and business on a regular basis. A snapshot of our culture to be sure, but a good snapshot!


The 1980s saw a rare foray onto television, as Jason Colby in The Colbys.

But, later in his career, Heston turned increasingly back to the stage, and to fighting for his political beliefs.
During his six years as president of the Screen Actors Guild , he decried the trend for undermining traditional American heroes.
And, having grown up in the Michigan woods where poor people sometimes shot their next meal, Heston became embroiled in a passionate national debate over gun laws.

A high-profile president of the National Rifle Association, he once vowed that the only way the government would take away his gun was from his "cold, dead hands".

On 9 August 2002, he issued a statement, announcing that his doctors had diagnosed "a neurological disorder whose symptoms are consistent with Alzheimer's disease".

A self-avowed Anglophile, he was a hugely enthusiastic reader of the Aubrey/Maturin novels of the late Patrick O'Brian and was co-chairman of the American Air Museum in Britain.

Heston once said of himself, "I have played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses in my career. If that doesn't create an ego problem, nothing does."

But, while his screen giants gave him the stature to champion his causes, Charlton Heston, along with many critics, felt his best film performance was as the shy, awkward ranch hand in Will Penny.

And while Charlton Heston will always be identified with heroes who lived before the birth of his country, it was perhaps the American pioneer who was closest to his heart. I have provided a link to Yahoo News which has a great deal more about Mr. Heston than I have been able to compile.

A Great Actor and a Good Man has died, and I send my Condolences to his family and friends. May Mr. Heston Rest In Peace!!

LINK TO MORE ON CHARLTON HESTON