Charlton Heston, RIP

The death of Charlton Heston signals a lot more than the end of the man himself; it signals the end of an era.

Heston exhibited a grace and class that had a lot more in common with the Hollywood of yesteryear than the Hollywood of today.  Heston had long been out of place in the entertainment industry environment – married 64 years to his wife Lydia, he led a life characterized by decency, fidelity, and honor; once the hallmarks of greatness in people, they are now regarded as the enemies by today’s populace who so desperately want more examples…not fewer…of moral and ethical failings so that they may comfortably point to them in an effort to clear their own consciences.  Alas, Heston, for one, could not deliver to them what they seek.

Many of you might remember the illustrative clash of “new” Hollywood crassness versus “old” Hollywood style and decency that occurred on Heston’s doorstep.  Heston announced very movingly in 2002 that he had what his doctors believed was Alzheimer’s disease.  In January 2003, George Clooney, noted Tinseltown leftist, was receiving a special achievement award for filmmaking from the National Board of Review when he joked, “Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s.”  When questioned about the remark by New York Newsday, Clooney said defiantly, “I don’t care.  Charlton Heston is the head of the National Rifle Association.  He deserves what anyone says about him.”

I remember thinking at the time that I wanted to punch Clooney dead in the face when he said that.  Actually, when reminded of it now, I am overwhelmed with the same feeling.  How completely classless, and yet, how perfectly the comment (and follow-up) demonstrated just how far we as a society, and our “heroes” in Hollywood, have fallen.

Clooney says he later apologized in writing to Heston, and received a cordial, positive response from Heston’s wife (no surprise there).  As for me, I’m not really a fan of apologies, and so I don’t accept his (while Heston was obviously the direct target of the comment, Clooney offended a lot of other people in the process, including me).  Apologies have long been those mechanisms to which public people turn only after they’ve been castigated for the thoughtless word or deed that engendered the need for the apology in the first place.  That Mr. Heston and his family saw fit to be generous enough with their forgiveness to be nice to George Clooney in the wake of his horrible remark just shows how much more evolved they are than Clooney…or me, for that matter.  Accordingly, let me say this: It’s nice to know that Clooney feels it’s OK that people who have committed the crime of standing firm in defense of the Second Amendment deserve what anyone says about them, because now I can, with clear conscience, say that those like Clooney, who stand against it, deserve what others say about them.  On that note, I hope Clooney, a filthy, anti-American, limousine-liberal, himself suffers a lingering, rotten, mind-stealing death.      

When Heston’s visage appears during the annual “In Memoriam” montage at next year’s Academy Awards telecast, it will be interesting to note if there is simply a smattering of applause that greets the image, rather than the thunder of hand-clapping that it richly deserves.  Despite all that he was as an actor and as a human being, I fear his sin…persisting in Hollywood as a conservative…will cause him to be enthusiastically dismissed by his acting brethren.  The values that Heston represented…everything that is good and decent…are spat upon, both literally and figuratively, by the Hollywood C-loonies with such ferocity and regularity that what remains is ugliness, and with the passing of Mr. Heston, Hollywood just became a little uglier still.  RIP.

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Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Contributing Editor -www.ChristianMoney.com