Charlton Heston died on April 5, 2008 at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. Lydia, his wife of 64 years, was by his side. Heston was the president of the National Rifle Association, America’s most powerful lobbying organization, from 1998 until he resigned in 2003 when his health began faltering due to Alzheimer’s. At the 2000 NRA convention, Heston raised a flintlock rifle over his head and yelled that a potential Democratic presidency could only take away his gun rights from his “cold, dead hands.”
Here’s an exclusive interview with Charlton Heston in 1997, before he ran for the NRA’s presidency:
Charlton Heston led the NRA from 1998 to 2003. Photo courtesy of Heston’s PR agency. Image used with permission
‘MOSES’ LEADS THE PRO-GUN CHARGE
By RONI TOLDANES
He is known worldwide for his magnificent portrayals of remarkable men. He has portrayed presidents, generals and statesmen; even winning an Academy Award for playing the title character in one of Hollywood’s greatest epics, Ben-Hur. But for millions of his movie fans around the world, Charlton Heston is Moses, the scepter-wielding prophet who led his people to freedom from the tyrannical grip of a despotic pharaoh in the blockbuster film The Ten Commandments.
Now, looking back over a career that has spanned half a century and over 70 motion pictures, Heston shares his views about gun ownership and his active participation in the defense of the Second Amendment. He is back in the limelight after his election as president of the beleaguered National Rifle Association (NRA), a key position in the fight of Americans to preserve their right to bear arms. He has become a real-life Moses for gun owners.
Heston, who said he learned to use a shotgun at age 10 in rural Michigan and prides himself on a personal collection of at least 30 firearms at his Beverly Hills home, said he figured his best asset to the NRA was his fame. “I have my access in Congress because I’m so pretty,” he quipped. “That counts.”
Even those who disagree with Heston acknowledge that his dramatic role as “Moses” in The Ten Commandments is difficult to erase from the public’s mind. “It’s somewhat flattering to lose to Moses, the voice of God,” said Neal Knox, explaining why Heston was able to sweep onto the NRA board and defeat him.
Heston himself is eager to oblige to that notion, which he described in his recent autobiography as “my expanded persona, riding the tiger.” With his image as Moses, he said he gets invited to dinners with powerful politicians and influential world figures. Before his interview with this writer, he traveled to Washington, D.C., for political kibitzing and to New York for a dinner with Prince Andrew honoring the American Air Museum in Britain.
A few years ago, Heston was busy promoting his book To Be a Man, which he dedicated to his grandson, Jack. Thousands queued for his book signing. One of the memorable comments he’d received was from an elderly woman who said, “I quit the NRA because of its bad image. I’m joining again because I know you can straighten things out.”
Photo provided by Charlton Heston. Image used with permission
Both gun lobbyists and gun control advocates say that Heston provided the kind of shot-in-the-arm desperately needed by the NRA and all American gun owners. His primary value lies in being a credible conservative. “Heston can make sure that people understand that the NRA is a mainstream organization,” Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) said. “He can deflect some of this criticism that the NRA represents the fringe elements of society. Charlton Heston is not a fringe person. “
Observers attribute the scope of Heston’s appeal not only to his stardom but to a reputation untarnished by the sexual and drug-related peccadilloes that dog so many celebrities. “Charlton Heston is a man motivated by commitment,” said Washington-based political consultant Tony Makris. “He’s been married to the same woman, Lydia, for 63 years – his first and only love, the first woman he ever dated.”
RAP CONTROVERSY
In conversation, Heston was his usual affable self – a kind of old-school combination of courtliness, disarming self-mockery and perfect diction. He took advantage of that diction in 1992 when Time-Warner was under attack for releasing rapper Ice-T’s controversial “Cop Killer” CD.
Heston, who owned several hundred shares of Time-Warner stock, barged into the stockholders’ meeting in Beverly Hills that summer and condemned the company for putting out an anti-police album.
With about 1,000 stockholders intently listening, Heston stood up and, with this sonorous voice, read the profane lyrics of “Cop Killer,” which almost no one in the room had heard or seen. The lyrics began with “F—k the police.” Heston’s move startled the stockholders and company executives. It was reminiscent of the movie scene when Moses raised his scepter and parted the Red Sea.
Time-Warner executives defended the album in terms of the First Amendment, but Heston told them, “Let me ask you: If this piece were titled ‘Fag Killer,’ or if the lyrics went ‘Die, die, kike, die!,’ would you still peddle it? It’s often been said that if Adolf Hitler came back with a dynamite treatment for a film, every studio in town would be after it. Would Warner be among them?”
Heston left the room in an echoing silence.
Several weeks later, Time-Warner caved in to criticism and intense national pressure, announcing that it had parted ways with Ice-T due to a dispute over album artwork. Industry observers credit Heston for the company’s decision.
“I’m proud of what I did, though now I’ll surely never be offered another film by Warner, nor get a good review from Time magazine,” Heston says. “On the other hand, I doubt I’ll get a traffic ticket very soon.” Heston has since sold his Time-Warner shares of stock.
OUTSPOKEN BELIEFS
Heston has devoted a great amount of his energy to causes in which he has strong and outspoken beliefs. He was an active supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the early days of the struggle for civil rights in America, “long before it became fashionable.”
His unsullied reputation brought him respect and admiration from his colleagues in Hollywood. He was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild and served six terms on the board of directors; and was appointed co-chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 task force examining the fiscal worthiness of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Like most men in his generation, Heston learned about firearms at a young age because he often accompanied his dad hunting in the Michigan woods. Heston didn’t hunt for trophies but for the meat, mostly partridge. “Hunting requires patience and concentration,” he says. “Life has lent me these qualities since, but I lacked them as a boy.”
Heston believes that the media, in general, are mistaken for saying that the public is anti-gun and anti-NRA. “We’re not a lonely band. We represent mainstream America. Gun ownership is too deep a part of our culture.”
He recalled his recent appearance on the TV show Late Night with Conan O’Brien, on NBC. “When Conan mentioned the NRA and my participation in it, the audience cheered,” Heston says. “And this show was taped in New York City, the heart of Liberalville.”
SHIFTING PUBLIC OPINION
Public opinion on firearms, Heston says, seems to be shifting in the face of recent violent incidents. He recalled the Los Angeles riots in 1992, which helped many Hollywood folks change their views on gun ownership. As smoke from burning buildings smudged the skyline and the TV news showed vivid images of laughing looters smashing windows and carting off boom boxes and booze, Heston got a few phone calls from firmly anti-gun friends. One conversation went this way:
“Umm, Chuck, you have quite a few … ah, guns, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Shotguns and … like that?”
“Indeed.”
“Could you lend me one for a day or so? I tried to buy one, but they have this waiting period … “
“Yeah, I know; I remember you voted for that. Do you know how to use a shotgun?”
“No, I thought maybe you could teach me. This is getting a little scary.”
“I noticed. I could teach you, but not in an hour. You might shoot yourself instead of the bad guys. The Marines are coming up from Pendleton; that’ll end it. When it does, go buy yourself a good shotgun and take some lessons. It doesn’t get so scary then.”
Heston said his friend writer-director John Milius had more calls. His answer was more forthright: “Sorry. They’re all being used.”
Heston identified several famous Hollywood people who own guns, including Steven Spielberg who owns one of the finest gun collections in California, but never refers to it, and never shoots publicly. Spielberg, who produced the all-time blockbuster film The Lost Word – Jurassic Park, has been photographed shooting a shotgun at a Trap and Sporting Clays range in California, but asked the photographer not to release his picture to the media. “Can you imagine the most famous filmmaker in town worried about his reputation?” Heston says, chuckling.
Charlton Heston’s letter to Roni Toldanes.
“There are numbers of gun owners, collectors, hunters, sport shooters in the film community, plus many more who keep firearms for protection,” Heston reveals. “I suspect, in fact, there are more Hollywood filmmakers who are closet gun enthusiasts than there are closet homosexuals.”
Can responsible gun owners really turn the tide of anti-gun sentiment in this country? Heston’s answer: “I think we’re doing that now. You won’t get another anti-gun bill approved in this Congress.”
SHOWING THE FUN SIDE
These days, Heston also shoots Sporting Clays when his hectic schedule permits it. By hosting celebrity sports shooting tournaments near Dana Point, California, Heston hopes to turn the tide of public opinion and encourage more Hollywood people to come out in the open in favor of responsible gun ownership. The competitions continue to attract more movie personalities each year, some of them coming from as far as New York.
Hollywood personalities, says Heston, are reluctant to come out in support of the Second Amendment “because they fear unemployment.” Heston hopes that by showing them that guns are not just for self defense, and that people can actually have fun with guns at the shooting range, he could reverse their unfounded opinion.
Charlton Heston doesn’t need Moses’ scepter to do that. But his sporting shotgun would come in handy.
Editor’s Note: Magazine editor Roni Toldanes interviewed Charlton Heston in 1997. His feature story won the first prize in “The $21,000 Great Stories Contest,” a nationwide writing contest sponsored by the Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA) and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). Toldanes received a standing ovation from more than 850 writers and editors during the OWAA national conference in Redding, California. Charlton Heston died on April 5, 2008 at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 84.
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