Barbra Paskin interviewing Charlton Heston
HOLLYWOOD, California ---Last night I watched that classic movie Ben Hur which starred one of Hollywood’s greatest actors, Charlton Heston. It’s always been a favourite film of mine and inevitably it brought back memories of the many times we had spent together. Heston was one of the first actors I interviewed when I became the BBC’s Hollywood correspondent in the mid ‘70s. And over the years we would banter that I had probably interviewed him more times than any other actor.
Mind you, he was not an easy man to interview. Not only because he was physically larger than life which made him intimidating. (If you are39 and weigh 203 lbs,” he once told me, “you don’t have to BE intimidating, you LOOK intimidating! Along with that voice - resonant, imperious. With a growl that could strike terror into a lesser person’s heart. (And certainly one that had barely turned 19.) He also had an intellect that made him a daunting opponent in verbal debate. He could quote Shakespeare and Kipling without batting an eyelid and was formidably erudite.
He never suffered fools, not even gladly, and his office was surrounded by piles of books that you had to clamber over in order to reach his desk. I always loved doing that. I’d stop and read the titles en route which for some reason made him chuckle. (Years later, he told me that he would make straight for the bookshelves when attending parties where he felt out of place; with books he could feel comfortable, safe - like Thomas Jefferson I could not live without books”.) Many of his collection were history books - art, history and biographies were some of his favourite subjects and he devoured them by the score. His two home libraries - 1 on 2 levels, accessed by a ladder - contained thousands of books (20,000 at last count, including a full collection of Hemingway first editions) and the piles in his office obliterated the framed photos of family and friends, some of them former US presidents.
His home bore remnants of his well-earned gains. The handles on his office door came from the gates of Ben Hur, he once told me. And there was Moses’s rod, El Cid’s sword. He was especially proud of his collection of historic guns, two of which had been the prized possession of Thomas Jefferson.
In startling contrast, when his grandson Jack was very young, this giant of an actor built Jack’s Sandpit outside the front door for him to play in. It brought to mind some 40 years earlier when he was filming Ben Hur in Italy . At the end of each filming day, Heston would fill a sack with sand from the stadium where he was learning to ride the chariot. Back at his rented villa, still clad in gladiator costume, he would tip out the day’s takings into the sandpit he had created for his young son.
I was in Paris in 2002 when I heard the statement he released about his doctors’findings of early Alzheimer’s symptoms. I was horrified by the cruel prognosis for one of the more brilliant minds I’d ever encountered. When I got back to LA, I sent him a note and offered in any way possible to help preserve the vast library in his mind. And was blown away by the note he sent me in response - consoling my own distress with a joke that at least now he would have an excuse for not remembering somebody’s name.
The last interview we did was a few months before his announcement. It was a print interview for The Times. Somewhere during the afternoon, Heston’s eyes started to mist over. Something I’d never seen in the 30 years of knowing him. We’d been talking about his wife, Lydia . They cherished each other. He was fiercely protective of her (If someone broke in while my wife was sleeping I would shoot them in a second, later ran The Times’ banner.
University sweethearts, he made coffee for her every morning. They always travelled together, sharing a lifetime’s adventures. And I had often seen them holding hands as they strolled around their sprawling estate.
I was so taken aback by the moist eyes that I thought perhaps she was ill. Is she alright? I asked. She was fine, Heston told me. But our conversation had made him feel very emotional. Not a word I’d ever previously used to describe him. Emotional? I questioned. love her as much today; he replied, as I did all those years ago when I was trying to persuade her to marry me. (She turned him down almost weekly until capitulating. And he went AWOL overnight from the army to marry her.) To my surprise, he added; I still have the telegram she sent me accepting my proposal; And the gold ring he bought her cost me $14 and she still wears it. That was a pretty good investment!
That’s true sentiment. I don’t know what made him bare it that day. Lydia waved to me when I was leaving and she certainly seemed okay. But it made me witness a side of him that he hadn’t previously exposed.
He’d even admitted that the most emotional moment in his life was when my girl married me. It’s hard to imagine that I would have been as successful as I have been without her."
I’d often encountered his sense of humour. Dry and ironic as it was. I once had to halt a television interview because of a terrible screaming and wailing noise that wafted from below up to his house at the top of Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills. It’s only the coyotes finding their lunc; Heston told me, seeing my concerned expression. They’ve probably found a bird. He was nonchalant. After all, he came from a family of hunters. (His favourite Christmas present was the rifle his parents gave him when he was nine, by which time he already knew how to shoot.) I, however, couldn’t get the picture out of my head of these creatures attacking a bird. (He’d forgotten I owned 5 birds of my own.)
And finally the noise was so blood curdling and I became so distraught that we had to call a time out until lunch was over down below. I was mortified. Heston, however, thought it was hilarious. He later told me he’d spent the last 2 months dining out on that story.
It was disappointing to see Heston’s massive contribution and devotion to his craft become minimalised in later years in the face of his stern politics and strident stance as president of the NRA. He never minced words and he always stood up for what he believed was right. Even if it was not publicly popular - and it often wasn’t.
From the black freedom movement (he marched with Martin Luther King) to the NRA to Elia Kazan, he was not afraid to stand up for his beliefs. But none of that can cloud his burning legacy.
Above all, with almost 100 films to his credit, he was a fine actor and he brought a fierce dignity and loyalty to his work. He approached that work with a vehement passion and his endless research always led him to study and read several books about any character he was playing. By the time the cameras started rolling, he could have held a university course about the subject. He came from a time that has been left behind and may never again be revisited. He was an actor and a gentleman. And he never stopped educating himself and others.
He could sometimes be self-deprecating. One story he wryly told me came from his youth. He was about 10 when he had to attend a new school. At the rollcall the teacher asked for Charlotte Heston to put up her hand. He was mortified and slid down in his seat. But the teacher kept repeating it until finally she demanded: Where is the little Heston girl? It got him into trouble, he laughed. “And I got into two fights at recess. Still remember it.”
Charlton Heston survives in Hollywood history as one of its greatest icons. A titan. He was one of the last survivors of a cinematic golden age. And yet he always treasured his theatrical endeavours. He admired Katherine Cornell as his mentor and had found early Broadway success in her 1947 production of Anthony and Cleopatra. “The stage” he once told me, “is the visa that every actor must return to get stamped if he wants to keep his passport alive.” He never forgot that. And he always returned. In his lifetime, he played many roles. Husband, father, grandfather, an American and an actor. And, as he once iterated to me, and not without tremendous pride - “in exactly that order!”