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Charlton Heston, rest in peace
Story here.
UPDATE: great tribe at the Belmont Club:
"Not very many people will remember that Charlton Heston picketed a segregated theater premiering his own movie; or that he accompanied Martin Luther King Jr on the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington. All at a time when no one in Hollywood was willing to speak out against racism. It's more likely that he'll be remembered as the six foot three inch tall actor, who played Moses and Ben Hur, and later became the president and spokesman for the National Rifle Association advocating the right to keep and bear arms; or recall that he opposed affirmative action. But Heston the marcher and Heston the NRA president come closer together if one recalls that in the actor's mind at least, racial segregation helped the cause of Communism. The fight for freedom took many forms, but underneath its varied guises it was always the same thing."
UPDATE: Newsbusters has an interesting rundown of how the media treated him during his life, after becoming NRA president. Suddenly he became a "polarizing" person. ("Polarizing" being someone who takes a stand the author doesn't like. If the author likes it, it becomes "leadership" or "frankness".).
· NRA
Comments
Yeah yeah yeah, he was a great screen actor, civil rights activist, Moses, Omega Man, Ben Hur, NRA President and all around over the top dude. But, BUT, for my money, the best thing he ever did was the Saturday Night Live skit where he played an elderly, and apparently psychotic, stock "boy" in a grocery store and the store manager was trying to fire him, or get him to quit acting so bizarre, or something.
Heston pulled out that eating the scenery persona that he did so well and asked the guy something like: "Freddie, have you ever wondered just how loud a man can scream?" Hilarious.
Of course, he also got major props in my book for just getting up and walking out, on camera, on the Big Fat Idiot.
Finally, that scene he did in the remake of Planet of the Apes was pretty cool. I read somewhere that he came in, knew his lines cold, got prepped in make-up (which took hours), did the scene in like one take, and that was it.
Posted by: Letalis Maximus, Esq. at April 6, 2008 07:42 AM
To quote another great American, Bill Jordan, "He'll do to ride the river with"..
Posted by: reloader at April 6, 2008 05:15 PM
The lefties and black politicians seem not to understand that there's not an inconsitency with standing up for civil rights and standing up for second amendment rights...Maybe Condoleeza Rice can straighten them out...her father and others stood watch over their neighborhood with shotguns at night against KKK raids...Early efforts at gun control revolved largely around preventing freed blacks from having guns.
Posted by: doug in colorado at April 7, 2008 09:52 AM
In Heston's famous key note speech to the NRA in 1998???, one of his lines was that the 2nd Amendment is needed more by minorities in urban areas, than white rural americans.
Posted by: mike123 at April 7, 2008 07:12 PM