Political correctness is tyranny; just tyranny with manners."
Charlton Heston is a singular figure in American history and consciousness. During the early period of his acting career he was known for historical and Biblical epics. After his career waned throughout the 1960s he was reborn as a science fiction actor thanks to his starring role in
Planet of the Apes. While often viewed as a bit of camp today this film and the series that spawned it was the biggest popular science fiction movie franchise in the pre-
Star Wars era.
For our purposes however Charlton Heston is an
unsung hero because he was a champion of limited government especially as it pertains to
Second Amendment rights. He served as president of the
National Rifle Association for five terms only retiring when he was diagnosed with
Alzheimers disease in 2002. Starting his involvement in politics in the
Civil Rights era he later gravitated toward conservatism organizing a political action committee to support
Ronald Reagan.
From the Air Force to Film
Heston was the son of a sawmill operator and grew up in backwoods areas of the Midwest. It was here that he acquired a lifelong love of nature as well as hunting. His parents divorced when he was 10. His mother remarried which is where the former John Charles Carter became Charlton Heston.
Acting came naturally to the young Heston who was a bit of a loner. When tromping around the backcountry of Michigan he would often act out the characters from books he was reading. When he got to high school he enrolled in the drama program. He used his budding acting career to win a scholarship to
Northwestern University where he continued his study of dramatics.
In 1944 Heston volunteered for service in the
United States Air Force reaching the rank of staff sergeant as a radio operator and aerial gunner on a
B-25. In March of that year he married fellow Northwestern student
Lydia Clarke to whom he would remain married for the rest of his life. After the war he received the highest civilian clearance
Q clearance and acted as a narrator for highly classified
Department of Defense instructional films about
nuclear weapons.
After the war the young couple moved to New York. Here they worked as artists models to make ends meet while picking up whatever acting gigs they could. The Hestons had decided to pursue theater and television rather than film. This made things awkward when Charlton Heston was offered a contract with a major studio. He told his wife that he would try just one film to see what it was like. That film was 1950s
Dark City but his breakthrough came with
The Greatest Show on Earth which won the
Oscar for Best Motion Picture in 1952 and was also the highest grossing film of the year. This was also his first collaboration with
Cecil B. DeMille.
His two biggest films were
The Ten Commandments where he played
Moses and
Ben Hur where he played the title role and won an
Academy Award for Best Actor.
The Ten Commandments remains one of the
10 highest-grossing films of all time when adjusted for inflation. He frequently returned to regional theater to get some time on the stage feeling that it reinvigorated his creative energies but he never performed on Broadway after starting his film career. A spotty up-and-down career followed his two major works which left him somewhat marginalized and forgotten by the time
Planet of the Apes came out in 1968. He acted as
President of the Screen Actors Guild from 1965 to 1971 a position formerly held by future
President Ronald Reagan.
Continue reading
Charlton Heston: The Forgotten History of Americas Favorite Actor and Gun Rights Advocate at
Ammo.com.
