Charlton Heston, RIP

[mido505]

Many thanks to Lawrence French for posting that lovely tribute to Charlton Heston. He was a true giant, a great friend to Welles, and will be missed.

[Harvey Chartrand]

http://arbogastonfilm.blogspot.com/
http://arbogastonfilm.blogspot.com/2007 ... -soon.html

Check out this "thinking blogger" award-worthy tribute to Charlton Heston at the Arbogast on Film blogspot, written just before Heston died. Seems the word was out around Hollywood that Heston didn't have much time left. Sadly, his future was all used up.

[RayKelly]

I see that the Associated Press obituary mentioned 'Touch of Evil' only in passing as an "eccentric thriller." However, Variety noted that "One of Heston’s finest performances was as a Mexican narcotics investigator in Orson Welles’ 'Touch of Evil,' followed by equally unshowy performances in 'The Big Country' and 'The Wreck of the Mary Deare.' "

The Los Angeles Times stated, Like the chariot race and the bearded prophet Moses, Heston will be best remembered for several indelible cinematic moments: playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with Orson Welles in the oil fields in 'Touch of Evil,'"

Perhaps best of all, The Washington Post wrote, "And he was in a number of first-rate and even a few great movies. His greatest film, 'Touch of Evil,' featured Heston as a Mexican narcotics detective, probably his biggest stretch and not really an outstanding performance. But he was invaluable in getting Universal to put up the money for Orson Welles' s great shaggy dog. It greatness may be incidental to Heston's performance, but its existence certainly isn't incidental to his behind-the-scenes efforts.

[NoFake]

Several gems in that wonderful excerpt Larry posted, among them this:

At lunch Orson advanced still another idea…a tele-film of DON QUIXOTE, with me as the eccentric Don. What, if anything will come of this, I can’t imagine. Orson’s argument is original and telling however. “All great actors,” he says, “are character actors.”

Kind of boggles the mind to imagine Heston as Don Q; still, it might have given him the chance to use the accent he decided against in ToE...

[Christopher]

Here's a link to Manohla Dargis's appraisal of "Touch of Evil" that appeared on the front page of The Arts section in today's The New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/movie ... ei=5087%0A

[Alan Brody]

RIP. It's too bad Welles and Heston never teamed up for Earth Abides, the classic sci-fi novel that they wanted to put on film. It's fairly similar in plot to Heston's later Omega Man, but with Welles at the helm, I'm sure it would have been another great film to put alongside Touch of Evil. We do have a fine early 50's radio program of it, which has been mentioned here before, and which can be accessed at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry for the book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides

[Dan]

I guess this is a bit late, but TCM's tribute to Charlton Heston is taking place today-

(All times ET)

2:30 PM Private Screenings: Charlton Heston
3:30 PM The Buccaneer (1958)
5:30 PM The Hawaiians
8:00 PM Private Screenings: Charlton Heston
9:00 PM Ben-Hur
1:00 AM Khartoum
3:30 AM Major Dundee