The Country Curmudgeon: Goodbye to a good guy
By Roy Hicks
Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:43 AM PDT
America has lost a genuine hero. Actor Charlton Heston recently died at the age of 84.
Those of us who remember him will never forget that exquisitely chiseled granite face: the lean slab-sided cheeks, the stern mouth, the classic Roman nose and the laser-like hawk’s eyes, which stared from beneath the cliff of such a magnificent brow.
Born John Charles Carter in 1924, Heston was a giant figure both on and off-screen. He personally represented everything good and great about America. A very big and athletic man, he was perfectly suited to play larger-than-life roles in Biblical, period and current movies. He really did drive the four-horse chariot in at least part of “Ben Hur.” He was equally memorable as John the Baptist in “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” as Moses in “The Ten Commandments” and as tormented artist Michelangelo in “The Agony and the Ecstasy.” A good horseman, he starred in movie westerns as well.
In one of his earlier roles he starred with Orson Welles and Marlene Dietrich in perhaps their last movie, the classic 1958 black-and-white “A Touch of Evil.” In one of his less-remembered movies (“Khartoum,” 1966) he played British general Charles “Chinese” Gordon, fighting a lonely war against a bloodthirsty Muslim maniac (Mohammed Achmed): the mad Mahdi who insanely dreamed of bringing “unity” and the “peace” of the graveyard to the Middle East by butchering tens of thousands of Egyptians and anyone else who opposed his fanatical plans in 1885. That story was almost eerily presaging of Osama bin Laden, another such Muslim maniac we are fighting today.
Heston was the quintessential American man. His personal life was without the slightest breath of scandal. In reality he was exactly as he appeared on the big screen: strong and statuesque, unafraid to face any critics and unwavering in his religious Christian and personal convictions.
Like Ronald Reagan, he began his political life as a New Deal Democrat and civil rights advocate. During World War II, when so many Hollywood heroes put on the uniform of the armed forces and went off to serve their country, Heston did as well. Like Reagan, in later years he emerged as a genuine rarity in Hollywood: a staunch and outspoken conservative. He became a rock of unabashed and unfashionable patriotism in a day when most Hollywood characters turned into liberal jellyfish and contemptible America-haters — as most of them are even now. He campaigned tirelessly for Republican presidential and congressional candidates and spoke fearlessly against the foolishness of “affirmative action.”
For several years he served as president of the National Rifle Association, lending his name and credibility loudly and proudly in support of the Second Amendment and the average citizen’s right to keep and bear arms, and we fellow patriots were mightily proud to have him as such a highly visible and articulate champion. After all, who would dare assail or question Moses?
We may never see his like again. He went off into eternity in the company of such real men as Audie Murphy, James Stewart, Tyrone Power, Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Rod Steiger, Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Lee van Cleef and so many other genuine Hollywood heroes who served with honor and distinction during our darkest days.
There are very few now who have the guts to follow in his tracks. Tom Selleck, James Wood, Nancy Davis and a handful of others come to mind; but they’re in a very small minority. The rest of the current Hollywood crowd would do well to try to emulate his exemplary life.
