April 7, 2008...4:17 pm
Death of a legend…
The man who parted the Red Sea, raced around on chariots, battled apes, investigated the origin of a substance called “soylent green” and countless of other iconic roles has died!
Charlton Heston - the man, the myth and the legend past away in his Beverly Hills home over the weekend. He was 84.
I remember seeing Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, El Cid, Soylent Green and Planet of the Apes as a young lad growing up, but he’s filmography is so vast, its hard to sum him up without writing a novel. Still, I think Ben-Hur and El Cid are among his best works.
The “greats” that came from the classic studio system are all dead. The ones who started their careers in the twlight of that system, like Heston, are also dying out. Soon there won’t be any resemblence to Hollywood of yester year and to its dedication to producting REAL, Honest films, not the crap the studios put out there today - do we really need a Shrek IV or a Spidey IV or Transformers II, etc…? No, but since the impact of money is so much more an issue in nowadays, in modern-Hollywood, greats like Heston and company are the only ones left who knew or know what it was like to work for a REAL studio system.
Mr. Heston… may you and your colleagues rest in peace. Sadly to the knowledge that your once great studio system is increasingly declining in its quality of films while increasing in its quantity only to produce more money.
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