Charlton Heston on High

By David Fantle & Tom Johnson

It's strangely appropriate that the actor who portrayed Moses and other historical heavyweights during an illustrious 48-year movie career should himself live atop a mountain. That happens to be the case with screen legend Charlton Heston. For more than 30 years, his piece of the rock has been a secluded parcel of real estate perched on top of Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills. Heston's land adjoins undeveloped acreage managed by the Los Angeles Water Department, thus furthering the illusion of a pastoral retreat, albeit a hideaway set against one of the largest urban areas in the U.S. -- greater L.A. that recedes endlessly in either direction from Heston's aerie.

Ascending to Heston's hilltop retreat does not come close to approximating his biblical journey up Mt. Sinai under the watchful eye of Cecil B. DeMille, but it does require all the torque our sub-compact can muster. Still imposing at 73, Heston sports an Adidas polo shirt and shorts as he greets us at the door. His broad shoulders and barrel chest taper down to a thin waist and muscular (although slightly knock-kneed) legs -- the product, no doubt, of hoisting cast-iron swords and the dead weight of flintlock rifles to the ready position in scores of films over the last four decades.

Since screen images are so indelibly linked in the public's collective consciousness, for just an instant, we half expect Heston to perform a miracle and part his swimming pool for us as we move to a workout room located just a short forehand stroke away from his tennis court.

Heston, alas, proves to be a mere mortal, humbly admitting that lucky casting has afforded him the opportunity to play "larger than life" characters on the screen -- Moses, Andrew Jackson, Judah Ben-Hur, John the Baptist and Michelangelo, to name just a few.

"I've been a public face for more than 40 years," he says. "It has advantages and disadvantages. But don't get me wrong, the positives far outweigh the negatives."

The interview takes place in a glass-enclosed hallway that affords a ringside view of the action on Heston's court. The hallway is stocked with buckets of tennis balls, a wealth of rackets, even a Universal Gym for weight training. In what seems an unconscious attempt to dispel any thought that he might be guilty of conspicuous consumption, Heston says he is fully aware his hard-earned good fortune as an actor has allowed him to indulge in pleasures of the good life.

"The time I spent as president of the Screen Actors Guild gave me a wide and embittering understanding of the mortality rate in the acting profession in Hollywood," he says. "More than three-fourths of the members of the guild made less than $2,500 last year. The brutal fact is that the overwhelming majority of actors don't act at all.  To be in a tiny band of perhaps a dozen men and five women who can choose what film projects they want to do is a shining stroke of good fortune."

Heston believes that the rampant unemployment among actors is a problem that can be credited to a historical lack of autonomy in the entertainment profession.

"The actor alone among artists can work only if someone gives him a job," he says.  "A painter can pump gas all week for a living and then paint masterpieces in his furnished room or back yard. The novelist needs only to earn enough money outside his living to be able to buy pen and paper. But the actor cannot act at all unless someone volunteers, 'Here's a part, there's a stage, go do it!' It's a unique frustration."

The concern Heston feels toward his fellow thespians isn't blind sympathy. He served a stint as co-chairman of President Reagan's task force on the arts and humanities and in accordance with the tighten-the-belt doctrine of Reaganomics, Heston believes arts funding shouldn't be exempt from cutbacks. 

"If you're cutting school lunches then you'd better cut support for the San Francisco Ballet," he says. "I think the public marketplace has to be an appropriate factor in judging the validity of art. While some creative undertakings are less well-equipped to thrive in the marketplace than others, they all have to accept the responsibility to test themselves there. I understand that ballet productions are expensive to mount and that grand opera with a full house can't break even. If you can't break even, then what's happening? Theaters, orchestras, or any artistic endeavor that seeks to insulate itself entirely from mass public consumption can't make a very good case for itself for government funding."

Throughout his career, Heston has shown a penchant for starring in epic box-office winners. He has practically cornered the market in adaptations of stories from the Old and New Testaments. "Ben Hur and "The Ten Commandments" are two biblical opuses that Heston admits profoundly influenced his career. Working with Cecil B. DeMille (on "The Ten Commandments" and the Oscar-winning circus epic "The Greatest Show on Earth") made an equally strong impression.

From the religious prophets of the ancient world to Elizabethan England and the tragedies of William Shakespeare, Heston has always had an unerring eye for quality scriptwriters.

"I've had the supreme satisfaction an actor can have, and that's the chance to try the great parts over and over again. I first performed "Macbeth" in school and I've done it five times since then. I figure I have one more left in me. Those combats at the end are the toughest fights in Shakespeare. They absolutely drain you. I fight with a broadsword and shield and sometimes with heavy war clubs-none of that light foil stuff like in "Hamlet." Any actor properly trained can do combat, but the problem with the great roles is that you are already pouring on the energy knocking the bottom out of the barrel and then to come to the fifth act of "Macbeth" and say, 'OK, now the fights.'"

The great roles notwithstanding, Heston believes that art also means compromise and frustration.

"I have never made a film or done a play where I felt the potential was realized," he says.  "The whole creative process is one of failure, that's why you can spend a lifetime in quest of perfection. It is like Michelangelo (whom Heston played in "The Agony and the Ecstasy") standing back from the Moses statue after working on it for two years, then throwing his hammer at it and saying, 'Why don't you speak?'  If Michelangelo could be dissatisfied with his work, then the rest of us bloody well better be."

While younger audiences may not know him as Moses, despite the regular Easter-time TV airing of "The Ten Commandments," Heston's continued appearances in films, such as the 1994 hit "True Lies," in which he played Arnold Schwarzenegger's menacing, eye-patch wearing boss, have introduced him to a new generation of filmgoers. Add to that his portrayal of a nefarious poacher in the 1996 film "Alaska" directed by his son Fraser, and a co-starring role in Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet," it's no wonder when pressed to name his favorite film, Heston replies, "I don't know, I'm not through yet!"

REEL TO REAL: In "Alaska" your son, Fraser, directed you. How would you assess your son as a director, especially vis-a-vis some of the all-time greats with whom you've worked?

HESTON: Fraser is a good director. He also has the enormous advantage in directing me because he knows me very well and he knows that I like to be pressed. Nowadays I almost always work for directors who are younger than me, and dare I say, greener in reputation. This situation usually results in an extraordinary deference, which is not useful to me as an actor. They'll say, "Oh Chuck, that take was marvelous. Could we perhaps do just one more take to be sure." I'll reply, "Hell, let's do five takes until I give you exactly what you want!" Fraser understands that those niceties are trivial and he gives me a frank assessment."

REEL TO REAL: You've even taken a turn at the helm, directing such actors as John Gielgud.

HESTON: My major flaw is that I am too kind to actors. Being an actor myself, I know it is hard when you are striving to get something that by definition is probably unattainable. I tend to praise actors too much -- and some need a lot of coddling. Gielgud, for one, was not interested in praise. He presumed he would be good, and he was. Many directors and actors like to talk endlessly about their scenes. It's like jacking-off; it's fun, but it really doesn't accomplish anything. If you have questions, explore them, but the time to talk about a scene is on your own time with the director, over a beer. Shooting time is too important.

REEL TO REAL: You worked with directors William Wyler and Cecil B. DeMille on two biblical blockbusters, "Ben-Hur" and "The Ten Commandments." What were their particular styles like?

HESTON:  Wyler's instinct for performance was the best I've ever seen. He would shoot several takes, but he wouldn't tell you what he wanted done differently because he really didn't know himself. He was just probing and searching for the best performance he could extract. DeMille was always very courteous to me and especially to actors at a time when it wasn't very fashionable to be polite to actors. He would always address them as ladies and gentlemen, not, "Hey you!" If he shot in the fall of the year, he would take great pains to shoot long and elaborate sequences that required a lot of extras. That way, he felt these people would be employed at a time when they could use a little extra money for the holidays. He gave me my first big break as the circus manager in "The Greatest Show on Earth." If you can't make it fly with two DeMille pictures, it ain't gonna get off the ground.

REEL TO REAL: Your recollections of DeMille don't jibe with some reports that he was a real fire-eater!

HESTON: I think he earned that reputation in his younger days. The two pictures I made with him were the last films he ever directed. He was in his 70s then. Don't get me wrong, he was quite authoritative. You've got to remember that for more than 40 years he had been one of the best known directors in the business and that shaped his personality. He was formal and really quite magisterial, I guess you could say.

REEL TO REAL: Have you ever not taken on a Shakespearean role? You always seem to jump at the chance to play the great parts, the latest being your role in Branagh's "Hamlet."

HESTON: Every time you get a chance to waltz with the old gentlemen, you have to do it, especially as an American actor, you don’t get that many chances. Obviously, I was never right for the title role in "Hamlet:" bass voice, 6 ft. 3," broken nose -- that's not right. It would be a one-act play. The great parts are all unachievable, really. I've done "Macbeth" five times and still have not gotten it right. I'm striving in roles that other actors have been trying to whip for four fucking centuries! As far as Shakespeare is concerned, I was attracted to parts that I was physically right for -- Henry the V, Macbeth and Marc Anthony. I first played "Macbeth" -- badly, no doubt -- in high school. I got the part because even at 14, I had a bass voice.

REEL TO REAL: In "The Big Country," another Wyler film from 1958, you had to be persuaded to take a supporting role as the hot-headed ranch foreman. Cut to 1994 and your small part in "True Lies;" are you comfortable at this stage of your career to cede the leads and assume character parts?

HESTON: Of course. Jim Cameron (the director of "Titanic" and "The Terminator") offered me the part and I asked him, as I ask every director, "Why do you want me to take this role?" He said that he needed me for the role because he required someone who could intimidate Arnold Schwarzenegger in his agent role. I told Cameron I could do that because I've been playing those kinds of parts all my life. To make the guy more menacing I came up with the idea of wearing the eye patch. I figured the guy had probably been an OSS guy during World War II, parachuting into Yugoslavia to cut German throats. Along the way, it's conceivable that he lost an eye.

REEL TO REAL: You are perhaps Hollywood's best-known political conservative. What do you see as your role in political campaigns?

HESTON: I think the role of surrogate, which I play in political campaigns, is widely misunderstood. Happily, it's most often misunderstood by Hollywood liberals who think they're contributing to a campaign by hitching a ride on Air Force One, or going to a White House dinner. That has nothing to do with a campaign. A president or presidential candidate really feels perfectly capable of electing himself -- and he'd better believe that. They sometimes want you to show up at the big rallies. I think I can make more of an impact on behalf of congressional and senatorial candidates. I do two things for a campaign -- I get people to show up at fundraisers, and I can usually turn out the media to cover an event.

REEL TO REAL: Liberal causes have always been de rigeur in Hollywood. Do you think your outspoken stance on such issues as less government and the right to bear arms has had an adverse effect on your ability to land certain film roles?

HESTON: The obvious presumption is that I lose roles because I'm a conservative. I refuse to accept that. I would be deeply distressed if that were true. It's different for younger filmmakers who happen to be conservative. They tell me, "Chuck, nobody's not going to hire you because everybody knows you are a political conservative, you've always been a conservative like John Wayne. But it's different for us." If they think that is true for them, O.K. But I have never had that feeling about myself.

REEL TO REAL: Many people don't realize that you were active in the early Civil Rights Movement.

HESTON: That fact insulates me from some criticism. There are certain things that political opponents dare not say about me -- for instance, that I am a racist. The Democratic Party shifted to the left in the 1960s after Jack Kennedy was killed. I don't think that's why the shift occurred, but nonetheless it happened. My politics are exactly the same as they were at the beginning.

REEL TO REAL: You met your wife Lydia while attending Northwestern University outside Chicago and have been married for more than 50 years now. Can such a long and exclusive run be chocked up to Midwestern family values?

HESTON: It really depends on picking the right girl in the first place. I suppose you could say, though, that I believe in the strength of Midwestern values. I am a Midwesterner. It's the center of the country -- it really is.