Losing A Friend
Today, a generation of Americans is mourning the passage of Moses, Michaelangelo, El Cid, Ben Hur, Andrew Jackson, Marc Antony, Cardinal Richelieu, and Henry VIII.
Charlton Heston, 84, the handsomely rugged actor who played all those men and used his distinctive voice and persona to champion the right of Americans to own firearms, died Saturday at his home in California.
Heston is perhaps best remembered by the outdoor world for his time and tenure as president of the National Rifle Association. From 1998 to 2003, Heston served as the NRA’s president and outspoken front man. During that time, he uttered two phrases that have stuck with us since then. One “from my cold dead hands” was used as a rallying cry by both sides of the firearms issue. The second, forgotten by many, summed up his feelings toward then-President Bill Clinton “America doesn’t trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don’t trust you with our guns.”
Those phrases, perhaps speak to the character of the man more than the many memorable phrases he uttered in the myriad of movies in which he appeared in a career that spanned more than sixty years (remember: “Soylent Green is people”?). An unapologetic conservative, his work and activism late in his career actually seemed to dwarf the work of the man who played a near-constant string of heroes from the 1940s until his retirement.
Born October 4, 1923 in a Chicago suburb, Charles Carter moved to St. Helen, Michigan where he learned his lifelong love of the outdoors wandering the Michigan woods outside his father’s lumber mill. Later, Heston (he took his mother’s maiden name and his step-father’s last name for a stage name) said those childhood times with nearly no playmates and his adventure books shaped his life. The books also helped him adjust to a displacement from the woods of Michigan to Wilmette, Illlinois, a North Chicago suburb.
His comfort from the discomfort he felt by that displacement became acting.
“What acting offered me, “ he said, “was the chance to be many other people. In those days I wasn’t satisfied with being me.”
That discomfort in his own skin passed as he found success in Hollywood. That success led to his becoming a larger-than-life persona in and of himself.
A consummate actor who was definitely comfortable being himself – and speaking out on issues he felt important. In fact, it was that trait that many in the shooting industry say Heston held in common with another of his contemporaries: Ronald Reagan.
He wrote about his beliefs in his numerous books, including “The Actor’s Life: Journals 1956-1975” and “In the Arena: An Autobiography” in 1995, but it was his real-life portrayal of a conservative that turned him into an icon of conservatism and frequent target of liberal ridicule.
Charlton Heston, October 4, 1923 – April 6, 2008
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For example, Heston carried on a very public feud with fellow actor Ed Asner during Asner’s tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild. In fact, Heston’s criticism of Asner helped cement the 6-foot 2-inch Heston’s image as larger-than-life with conservatives.
But it was his unceasing work championing gun rights that endeared him to our industry. That work also led the media to the common use of three words to describe Heston: pride, independence, and valor.
Even those who vehemently disagreed with Heston admired the man, his body of work, and his insistence that he was just simply a man who had been fortunate in his career. But he was blessed with a wry wit. “I have played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses,” he said, “If that doesn’t create an ego problem, nothing does.”
For many television fanatics, Heston was also the man who once flabbergasted Johnny Carson as Carson hosted the Emmy Awards. Called to the podium, Heston quietly leaned into Carson’s ear. Carson’s hands immediately flew to his trouser fly, live on national television, at which time Heston smiled sweetly and said “Gotcha.”
As Carson observed later, “When Moses tells you your fly’s open – you believe him.”
My too-few meetings with Mr. Heston always started the same, a hearty handshake, a friendly look in the eye and this phrase: “Call me Chuck.”
I never failed to be impressed with his friendliness or candor, but could just never force myself to call a childhood idol “Chuck.”
While most of us will remember Mr. Heston for his conservative causes, he also supported Dr. Marin Luther King. He frequently described King as a “modern day Moses for his people” and took part in the historic 1963 people’s march on Washington.
Like his friend Ronald Reagan, Heston was a registered Democrat for many years, despite the fact he frequently supported conservatives despite their party affiliation.
In fact, it was not until Democratic Senators blocked the confirmation of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court that Heston severed ties with the Democratic party. About that same time, he took on Time-Warner, blasting the company at a stockholders meeting for Ice-T’s “Cop Killer “ (it was subsequently withdrawn from the market). Heston also campaigned actively for Republican candidates in 1996 before being elected President of the NRA in 1997.
It was that year he also delivered the keynote at the 20th anniversary celebration for the Free Congress Foundation, describing a “cultural war” in America that was “storming our values, assaulting our freedoms, killing our self-confidence in who we are and in what we believe.”
Heston never varied in his positions.
Ever the champion of Second Amendment rights, Heston took pride in his gun collection at his home in the Coldwater Canyon section of Beverly Hills. And he never fell into the Hollywood social scene, preferring instead to spend his time “exercising, working, reading, or sketching.”
It was at that home – in the company of his wife Lydia (they had been married 64 years), son Fraser and daughter Holly Ann where he died Saturday.
Godspeed, Chuck, we’ll miss you.
Article, compliments of theoutdoorwire.com
Ryan Cleckner, a Phoenix native, served in the United States Army as an Airborne Ranger in 1st Ranger Battalion in Savannah, Georgia. He served on a Ranger fire team for a couple of years until he made his transition to the 1st Ranger Battalion Sniper section. He has attended the Special Operations Target Interdiction Course (SOTIC), Airborne School, Ranger School, EMT-I School, and he was part of the first group of Americans to ever graduate the French Alpine Instructor’s course (CIECM). Ryan completed multiple combat deployments as a Ranger Sniper and as a Sniper Team Leader.
