Charlton Heston: The Alpha and Omega Man

Q: Speaking of Ridley Scott, how do you think Gladiator will hold up in comparison with Ben-Hur?

A: Gladiator's, very good. Russell Crowe is extremely good in the part. Ben-Hur had the chariot race, which is probably the best action sequence ever filmed, but the battle stuff in Gladiator is extremely good.

Q: Al Pacino told me that Russell Crowe is the only real movie star today. Is he right?

A: I've only seen him in the one movie.

Q: You once called Marlon Brando "the most naturally gifted actor in American film."

A: Yes, but he didn't use it. After he did One-Eyed Jacks, they'd send scripts over and he wouldn't read them. He'd say, "How can you talk about movies when there are people starving in India?"

Q: You also said you believed Spencer Tracy to be "the best American film actor on the planet."

A: Tracy was the best, certainly, of his time. He gave us a permanent mantra for our profession: show up on time, know your words, and don't bump into things. And he had enormous flexibility.

Q: Laurence Olivier you called "God."

A: He was the best actor of our time. I was directed by him onstage and acted with him in Khartoum.

Q: You've said you're not certain we have a great actor in America today. What about De Niro? Pacino? Hanks?

A: You've named probably the three best of our time: De Niro, Pacino and Hanks. But I cannot understand why almost no American film actors will do stage. I walked over to De Niro at a restaurant in Santa Monica once and said, "Mr. De Niro, we've never met, but I must tell you that I think you're the best American film actor of your generation." He's somewhat withdrawn and said, "Thank you, thank you." Then I added, "That said, you have to do Shakespeare." And he said, "Yeah, yeah, people say that to me all the time." I said, "They're right. It's shocking, with your ability, that you haven't done that." Then I realized that I had irritated him and said, "I have no right to tell you how to run your career...But I'm right!"

Q: You've said of Marilyn Monroe: "After Garbo, there's probably never been a woman the camera loved more than Marilyn."

A: The camera either loves you or it doesn't. There's nothing you can do about it. The camera loved Monroe, just as it did Gary Cooper.

Q: You had an opportunity to act with Monroe in Let's Make Love, didn't you?

A: Yes, I turned it down. She had been so difficult on sets. I know she was a troubled, insecure woman, but still. On The Misfits, Clark Gable, an icon who still always showed up on time, would sit all day waiting for her. Come five o'clock he'd say, "See you tomorrow." He never made a fuss. But that was just terrible.

Q: Another woman like that was Ava Gardner, with whom you worked on 55 Days at Peking. You've said she was as difficult as any actress you've worked with. What made her so difficult?

A: She was the last of the great female stars. When I worked with Ava, she was a knockout beauty. The first time I met her was at her apartment in Madrid. She told me how she came from the Carolina hills and I came from the Michigan woods, so we had something to talk about. She was very nice, but this was probably the first time she'd participated in script conferences. Nick Ray was directing--and this film would later kill him. We met at his house, and she listened for quite a while, had a couple of glasses of wine, and then started bashing everything--the script, everybody in it, everybody involved. I walked out the door, tossed my wine glass in the pool and went back to where I was staying. It was clearly very difficult for her. She looked wonderful, she knew her words and she wasn't a bad actress by any means...but it was very hard to get her out of the trailer. Sort of a Monroe thing, I guess.

Q: Do you have any other vivid memories of her?

A: Oh, yeah. When we had two weeks to go, the producer was giving a party for one of the honchos in the company. She left, and 20 minutes later I left, and outside, there was Ava standing in the middle of the street. She had a red satin cloak and she was doing matador passes at the taxis with her cloak. Quite impressive.

Q: You worked with both Sam Peckinpah and Orson Welles, two directors given the label genius. Were they?

A: They both were extraordinarily talented. Sam had a shorter career than he should have. He had substance problems. And he was a feisty guy--that's not the tone to take with studio heads.

Q: If it hadn't been for you, Orson Welles wouldn't have directed Touch of Evil, would he?

A: Orson was the most talented man I ever met--which doesn't mean I think he was the best actor, the best director or the best writer. But whatever you mean by talent--he had more of it than anyone I ever saw. I got a call from one of the honchos at Universal asking me what I thought of the script Badge of Evil. I said, "It's pretty good, but they've been doing those cop pictures from silent days. It really depends on who's going to direct it." He said, "Well, we haven't set the director yet, but we have Orson Welles to play the heavy." I said, "Why don't you let him direct?" You'd think I'd suggested my mom to direct the picture. There was this silence, and then, "Yeah, Citizen... Ambersons... we'll get back to you."

Q: How was he to work for?

A: Wonderful. On the opening day of shooting, the second A.D. is supposed to call the production office the minute they turn the camera on for the first time. We rehearsed and we rehearsed and never turned the camera on. It was well after lunch and executives were now gathering in uneasy little groups in the corners. They were afraid to get into a thing with Welles. Finally Welles said, "OK, let's shoot it." We did that scene, one dolly shot, in four takes, including close-ups. Then Welles said, "Print, cut, that's a wrap. We're two days ahead of schedule." The studio executives thought they'd gone to hog heaven. They figured he could do that every day. Of course he didn't. He just wanted to show them he could have.

Q: How did Welles lose control over the final cut of the picture?

A: I was shooting The Big Country for Wyler and I got a call from the studio asking where Orson was. I didn't know. He just walked off Touch of Evil in the middle of the editing. Universal had been delighted with him--he'd finished shooting on time, they loved what he shot. It was just foolhardy to walk out in the middle of cutting. If you turn in your first cut and then come back to make changes, that's another thing. But you can't just walk out.

Q: Welles did return, didn't he?

A: It was too late. I have the famous 58-page memo Welles sent the studio. He sent me a copy because he knew I would be on his side. I was told they wanted some retakes and extra shots but there would be another director, and I said to my agent that I wouldn't show up. He said, "Chuck, you have to. Just shut up and do the scenes."

Q: Touch of Evil was recently released on DVD, and another film of yours is now being reissued in a restored version on DVD, The Greatest Story Ever Told. Have you seen it?

A: No, I haven't. I saw it when it came out. It was not a success, considering [George] Stevens's stature as a director. My agent had called and said, "George Stevens wants to do a film about Christ and he wants you to play the lead." I said, "Christ is not the right part for me. But I'd love to be in it." Max von Sydow, who was far and away the best European actor, played the best Christ I've ever seen on film.

Q: Christ is a pretty thankless role, isn't it?

A: That's why it's amazing that he could be that good. I was John the Baptist, which is a good but fairly short part.

Q: You argued with George Stevens to show John the Baptist's head being cut off. Who was right?

A: He said to me, "Remember, Chuck, this isn't a movie about John the Baptist." You had to go with your director. But I remember shooting the baptisms in the Colorado River--it must have been in the high forties. I had a swimsuit underneath my fur tunic but it was still pretty cold. George came walking down and asked how it was going. I said, "Fine. But if the Jordan had been as cold as the Colorado, Christianity would never have gotten off the ground." [Laughs]

Q: Were you brought up religious?

A: Yes. I'm an Episcopalian. Not as strongly attended as I should be. I was baptized and I'm glad I was.

Q: Did you get more religious playing some of the roles that made you famous?

A: How can you avoid that?

Q: How big a compliment was it when Willy Wyler told you that after playing Moses, John the Baptist and Judah Ben-Hur, you were the best imitation Jew in Hollywood?

A: I thought that was great. I treasure that.

Q: You've said you consider Wyler the best director of performance in film.

A: Once, when we'd shot a scene of Ben-Hur for three days, he still kept coming back to this one part. After we finished, I was in my dressing room about to shower and he came to the door. "Sorry to catch you with your pants off, Chuck," he said, "but I wanted to talk to you." He came in. I poured him a drink. He said, "Chuck, you have to be better in this part." Charming. I said, "OK. What should I do?" He said, "I don't know. If I knew I'd tell you and you'd do it, but I don't know. I just know you have to be better." And he left. I sat for a long time with a drink in my hand. And in the end, I was better.

Q: In the film The Celluloid Closet, it came out that Gore Vidal had been brought in to work on some scenes between you and Messala and he had suggested that the key to the Judah/Messala friendship was homosexuality. Was there anything to this?

A: I don't know who suggested that Gore Vidal take a shot at this scene, but somebody did. I don't think it was Willy. Willy showed the scene to me and it wasn't marvelous. The scene we already had was better. Then the playwright Christopher Fry came in and did some more work on it. Gore Vidal has never gotten over that.

Q: You called Vidal a tart, embittered man.

A: Yes, he is. He's done some good writing, but he wasn't good at writing film scripts.

Q: Ben-Hur won 11 Oscars. Do you think any film will ever match that?

A: No. Titanic won 11, but now there are additional categories.

Q: What degree of reality do your characters have for you after you've finished playing them?

A: A good proportion of them, in my case, have been real men, unlike Taylor in Planet of the Apes. With Richelieu or Andrew Jackson or Gordon of Khartoum or Marc Antony, you are playing genuinely great men--and great men are more interesting than the rest of us. I find that fascinating. I certainly always know that I'm acting a scene when I play them, that it's not really me. But I understand those characters better than most laymen because I have searched them out.

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