CHARLTON HESTON: BIOGRAPHY

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Charlton Heston, 1923-2008: An Actor Famous for Playing Heroic Roles

Today we tell about actor Charlton Heston. He is best known for playing powerful and heroic leaders in movies such as "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur." Heston had a strong face and body that could express great physical and emotional force.

Heston made about one hundred movies during his sixty-year career.  He was also known for his social and political activism.

Charlton Heston was born John Carter in nineteen twenty-three in Evanston, Illinois. He spent his early childhood in Saint Helen, Michigan. His parents ended their marriage when he was a boy. Later, he decided to change his name. He took the last name of his mother's second husband, Heston. And, for his first name he used his mother's former last name, Charlton.

Charlton Heston discovered his interest in acting while performing in plays at his high school. He later spent two years studying theater at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. But he left college to join the Army Air Forces during World War Two. In nineteen forty-four he married a college classmate, Lydia Clarke.

The young couple moved to New York City after the war. They tried to find acting jobs. Heston found small roles in the theater as well as in television shows. His performance in a television version of the book "Jane Eyre" caught the attention of the Hollywood producer Hal B. Wallis.

Wallis gave Heston a role in the movie "Dark City," which came out in nineteen fifty. The actor soon found other roles in movies including "The Greatest Show on Earth" directed by Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille later asked Heston to play the role of Moses in his movie "The Ten Commandments" which came out in nineteen fifty-six.  Heston played the Egyptian prince who learns his true identity and leads the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt to the promised land.  This role made Heston famous and defined his career as a hero and leader.  "The Ten Commandments" was long, very costly and had many special effects.

In nineteen fifty-eight Heston starred in "Touch of Evil."  He played a Mexican drug investigator.  Orson Welles also had an acting role in this film.  Heston persuaded Universal Studios to hire Welles to direct the movie. "Touch of Evil" has since become a great example of the kind of crime movie known as "film noir."

The nineteen fifty-nine movie "Ben-Hur" made Charlton Heston an even bigger star. He played a Jewish man named Judah Ben-Hur who is imprisoned unjustly and rebels against the rule of Rome in ancient Judea.  The movie is most famous for a long scene in which Ben-Hur competes in an exciting chariot race against a Roman commander he considers his enemy. Recreating such a large event on film required a great amount of money and technical skill.

Many actors would have used a professional stunt man to carry out such a dangerous activity as a chariot race. But Charlton Heston did much of the work himself. He trained for weeks to learn how to skillfully lead a team of speeding horses.

After Ben-Hur wins the chariot race, he speaks with Esther, the woman he loves. She wants him to forget about his hatred towards the Roman government in power.

ESTHER: Oh Judah, rest, sleep. For a few hours of the night, let your mind be at peace.

JUDAH: Peace? Love and peace! Do you think I don't long for them as much as you do? Where did you see them?

ESTHER: If you had heard this man from Nazareth…

Esther tells Judah about having listened to the teachings of the prophet Jesus.

JUDAH: Children of God? In that dead valley where we left them? I tell you every man in Judea is unclean and will stay unclean until we've scoured off our bodies the crust and filth of being at the mercy of tyranny. No other life is possible except to wash this land clean.

ESTHER: In blood?

JUDAH: Yes, in blood!

At the time, "Ben-Hur" was one of the most costly and complex movies ever made. It cost MGM Studios fifteen million dollars to produce. The popularity of the movie alone helped improve the financial situation of the studio. "Ben-Hur" won eleven Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Charlton Heston.

In the nineteen fifties and sixties, many actors used "Method acting" to produce a believable performance. Actors like Marlon Brando would explore their personal emotions and experiences to create a realistic character. Charlton Heston chose instead to use objects in real life to build a character. For example, he would think about the way his character looked and what clothes the character would wear.

Heston studied intensely to understand his characters. For example, in the movie "The Agony and the Ecstasy" Heston played the role of the sixteenth century Italian artist Michelangelo. Heston learned how to paint and sculpt so that he could realistically imitate the artist's actions. He also studied the hundreds of letters written by Michelangelo to more fully understand the artist's personality.

Heston starred in many adventure movies during the nineteen sixties.  His face and body represented strength, manliness and heroism in many different roles. He played cowboys, soldiers, athletes. His movies included "El Cid", "Khartoum", and "The Greatest Story Ever Told."  In the science fiction film "Planet of the Apes" he played an astronaut who is enslaved by a society of intelligent and powerful non-human rulers.

GEORGE TAYLOR: Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!

In the nineteen seventies, Heston appeared in popular disaster movies like "Earthquake," "Skyjacked" and "Airport 1975."  Charlton Heston once said that over his career he played three presidents, three holy men and two artistic geniuses. He joked that if that did not make a person feel self-important then nothing would.

Throughout his life, Charlton Heston was active in social and political causes. In the nineteen fifties and sixties, he worked to defend civil rights. In nineteen sixty-three he helped gather artists to participate in the March on Washington, D.C. to demand racial equality. It was at this historic event that the civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.  Mr. Heston was a very public supporter of Dr. King.

Charlton Heston was also very active in the movie industry. He was president of the Screen Actors Guild for six years starting in nineteen sixty-five.  He also worked to help establish the American Film Institute. In nineteen seventy-seven he was honored for his service in the industry. He received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

He later received other awards for his lifetime of work.  In nineteen ninety-seven he was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor. And, in two thousand three, President Bush gave Charlton Heston a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Later in his life, Heston became more socially and politically conservative. He supported Republican Party politicians.  And he became known for actively opposing laws to control the private ownership of guns.  In nineteen ninety-eight Heston was elected president of the National Rifle Association. This organization works to oppose gun control laws. It considers the right to own a gun an important civil right guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

Charlton Heston became famous for a speech he gave for the N.R.A. in two thousand. He held up a large rifle used in the seventeen hundreds.  He said the only way the government could take away his gun was from his "cold, dead hands." Heston wrote about his opinions in books including "In the Arena" and "To Be a Man: Letters to My Grandson."

In two thousand, Charlton Heston issued a statement announcing that he had a nerve disorder whose signs were like Alzheimer's disease.  He died in two thousand eight at his home in Beverly Hills, California. He was eighty-four years old.  The memory of Charlton Heston will live on in the powerful heroes he brought to life in his movies. His style of acting and the movies he made represent a special period in the history of Hollywood.

Peer Gynt (1941)

 

'Peer Gynt' is most notable for being the film debut of Charlton Heston, and it was interesting seeing him in such a big and difficult role so young. The play itself is one of Henrik Ibsen's best in my view, and judging from 'Peer Gynt' and 'Hedda Gabler' especially Ibsen is one of the greatest and most influential playwrights of the 19th century. Just love the fantastical folklore-like atmosphere, the rich characters that were very personal for Ibsen and some very memorable scenes. While 'Peer Gynt' is interesting as a curio for both Heston and to see as many Ibsen adaptations as possible (not just 'Peer Gynt'), it is really not a great representation of either. The play is much more complex in characterisation and storyelling, atmospheric and dramatically compelling than what is shown here. And while Heston came on a long way as an actor not long after, the inexperience is obvious. Can appreciate the film for its ambition, the film didn't have the budget and resources to pull it off well in execution. There are certainly good things. For a film that didn't have a high budget the film does look good, the sets capture the folklore-like atmosphere very well in the earlier parts of the film and a good deal of skill went into the photography, quite impressive for 16mm. Personally had no problem with the masks. The supporting cast are more than up to the task, the cast is huge (anybody not familiar with the play, which has a lot of characters, may consider it too huge) but they give it a lot without being too broad. Grieg's music, composed as incidental music at Ibsen's request originally, is the best thing about the film. The music itself is absolutely timeless, with two of the movements ("Morning" and especially "In the Hall of the Mountain King") being iconic. Also the ones that fit the most effectively, the latter being almost demonic. The drama has moments, the encounter with the Troll King is memorable and Solveig is portrayed poignantly. Heston's performance is brave but also very uneven. He shows a lot of charisma when Peer is younger and captures the spirit of the character well, but he is a lot less effective in the character's older years and once Peer is in Morocco where there is not near enough to Peer as a character because his turmoil is so blandly done. What passes as Morocco is not remotely believable as the real Morocco. While the intertitles are thoughtfully written and intrigue, they don't do much to make the story clearer and bog the film down a bit. Bradley's direction comes over as rather sluggish and static, a case of his ambition being admirable but not having the experience to pull it off. The story comes over as very messy, it is very dully paced (especially the Acts 4 and 5 action) and comes over as very sprawling and episodic with nowhere near the amount of complexity needed and the drama fails to make sense. Ibsen's play and stage directions broke conventions at the time, the drama comes over as too conventional and static and 'Peer Gynt' would have benefitted from being at least 20 minutes longer to give depth to any of the characters. Despite in actuality there being a lot going on in the play and having a lot of characters, there is almost a feeling of feeling bloated and having too many characters in film translation. The atmosphere comes over as bland, especially later on, with little grandeur or tension and it also comes over as strange from doing too little with the conscious and unconscious time and space aspect that makes the play unique. The film also doesn't do a very good job at making Peer likeable or rootable, Peer is a complex character that grows a lot throughout the play (or at least Acts 4 and 5) but one doesn't get that in the film. He comes over as too much of the younger years braggart lothario persona he is in Acts 1 and 2 throughout, and it doesn't help that older Peer is played so blandly.

Julius Caesar (1950)

 

Back in the 1930s, a reporter named Wallace Irwin wrote a hard-boiled mystery novel spoof called THE JULIUS CAESAR MURDER CASE, in which Caesar and his cronies behaved and talked like cut-throat gangsters...which, when you think about it, they were. I kept thinking of Irwin's novel as I watched this black-and-white low-budget oddity from 1950, which was filmed in Chicago at various sites that double quite well for ancient Rome. The look is ancient, but the actor's accents could be straight out of an old James Cagney or Edward G.Robinson gangster movie. With that in mind, this movie provides yet another interesting take on one of the best plays ever written: Shakespeare's Caesar is the first and greatest Godfather of them all. This movie marks the first of many appearances in loincloth by Charlton Heston (aged 25), who reprised the role of Antony in the 1970s all-star version, and again played Antony in his own movie adaptation of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. The role fits him like a glove. There's also a small appearance by Jeffrey Hunter, who speaks a few lines and has some close-ups as a plebeian in the crowd reacting to the speeches by Brutus and Antony. All in all, a worthwhile curiosity for anyone interested in pioneering independent film, Shakespeare movies, or the career of Charlton Heston.

Dark City (1950)

 

This film is crime noir since Danny Haley, its lead played admirably by Charlton Heston, in his first major Hollywood starring role is running an illegal bookie joint. The film, as no one else seems to have noticed, is about a man who because his British wife left him after the war and he is disillusioned by the military-industrial complex's fostering of postwar injustice, has taken up "hustling" instead of trying to play by the Establishment's rules. All throughout the movie, people keep blaming Danny for untrue things, his crime being in giving up on an increasingly corrupt postmodernist national government--i.e. neither being an altruistic Democrat nor an overworking Republican. In the film, Danny's place is raided by honest police officer Dean Jagger. The raid leaves Danny with no source of income. A stranger, Don DeFore, strikes up a conversation in Danny's hangout; he ends up in a poker game with Danny's bookie friends Soldier (Harry Morgan), Barney (Ed Begley Sr.) and Augie (Jack Webb). DeFore loses 5000 dollars in a crooked game, pays with a cashier's check and hangs himself in his hotel room that night--some of the money was not his...But, soon after, Barney is found hanged, and the rope was just put around his neck to make the crime look like a suicide. The jumpy, coward Augie and Danny figure that they are going to be the next targets, since they learn Arthur has a psychopathic brother, Sidney. They fly to Los Angeles to seek out the man's widow and get a photo of the brother. Soldier did not participate in the card game. He goes to work in a Vegas casino run by his old-time boxing friend Swede (Walter Sande). This intriguing setup is then turned toward Danny's life-altering meeting with Arthur's gorgeous widow (Viveca Lindfors). He has avoided making a commitment to Lizbeth Scott, a lounge singer who is very much in love with him. But seeing how determined the honest Lindfors is to make a life for her son, he decides to try to get enough money in Vegas to pay the widow back and pair with Scott. The kicker in the deal is the crazed Sidney is still hunting him and Augie as well. Cinematography is luminous B/W by Victor Milner, and the art direction by Franz Bachelin and Hans Dreier complements the great William Dieterle's direction effectively by my lights. Franz Waxman provided serviceable music, Sam Comer and Emile Kuri did complex set decorations; and the female participants looked lovely partly thanks to Edith Head's costumes.Larry Marcus' story "No Escape" has been adapted here by Ketti Frings, with John Meredyth Lucas. The script's episodic elements prevent this movie from being recognized for the fascinating character study it is. It is about what happens to those who for whatever reason stop trying to fight for life in the world of normative values, whoever the opponent, and who enter the world of the collective--crime--for whatever reason. In this story about Danny, the man who escapes the "dark city" he had thought to hide from life in, Charlton Heston is very good for his age. Jack Webb, a powerful radio actor, here turns in what I regard as his best screen performance ever as the nasty and cowardly Augie., Ed Begley Sr. was one of Hopllywood's best dramatic actors, infusing a small part in this feature with his usual dynamic intelligence; and Harry Morgan as the brassy "Soldier" is charismatic and effective. Viveca Lindfors is very well cast I suggest as the suffering but courageous wife; Don Defore was very good at playing a man shallower than he appeared, and here he has a lot to work with. This film is the first since Ayn Rand's "Love Letters" to reunite DeFore and Lizbeth Scott. Scott had limitations in drama although she was adept at comedy, and here she looks lovely as the singer, Fran. Others in the cast who showed to advantage included Dean Jagger, Walter Sande, Walter Burke, and many lesser known persons. Mike Mazurki was miscast as DeFore crazed brother but does his powerful best as usual. This is a very seminal-transitional film, I claim, from a period when noir films, crime or otherwise, had been set in the underworld, to the period where the breakdown of U.S. society had begun to affect law-abiding folk. It is also one of the post-war angst films wherein the war to "make the world safe for democracy" had been revealed as leading to difficulties for returning servicemen. It just misses being very good indeed.