Will they be the lessons of personal honor, faith, loyalty that Heston portrayed? Of self-sacrifice for the greater good that enriches a nation's present, and past, and ensures its future? Or do they tend to portray the very characteristics Heston reviled?  When songs of today blatantly feature the foulest language for kids to emulate, when even their CDs are marked with watered down ratings, we here have to wonder.  We sorely need the Heston of the new millennium, but I do not fool myself. 

 

For him, it wasn't about fame, or money, or the like. It was about personal  integrity.

After making El Cid, Samuel Bronston was readying Fall of the Roman Empire. The sets were among the first things he commissioned. The glittering white vastness of Rome, the eternal city herself was magnificently created on acre after acre at his studio. He invited Charlton Heston to come visit, hoping he would accept the leading role. Heston famously passed on it, saying he was afraid it repeated Ben-Hur. 

Bronston mentioned that he was making 55 Days at Peking, and Heston did express interest in that role. And that was good enough for Bronston. With a wave of his hand,  Bronston had his crew tear down his spectacular Rome sets and in their place built the walled Forbidden City for Peking. 

 

Heston was that big -- as in giant -- but he never seemed to let on. He was humble and grateful for his stardom, filming Khartoum and The War Lord with fatally flawed characters. But with the skills of an accomplished professional, he brought to the roles such dignity and fascinating perspective they are watchable many times over. He silently marched for civil rights without all the braying and “watch me” antics of today’s so-called stars and brought the attention gun advocates needed during his presidency of the NRA. He was at his best -- meaning most believable, when playing giants of history - Moses, Andrew Jackson, Michangelo, and El Cid, but even fictional characters - Taylor of Planet of the Apes, the aging quarterback of Number One, the timeless cowboy of Will Penny rocked, letting even small films benefit from the luminance he brought to the screen. My greatest sadness stems from never having met him; of failing the possibility of somehow arranging that never-to-be meeting. I must be satisfied knowing him the way I have always known him, as a hero of the screen, up there, apart from the rest of us. And that is as it should be. Charlton Heston: Movie star of the first degree, actor, director and writer, gracious star of the decades, you are sorely missed.