Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston born John Charles Carter, was an American film actor noted for his heroic roles and for his long involvement in political issues, mainly as five-time president of the National Rifle Association.

Sourced

• Let me make a short, opening, blanket comment. There are no "good guns". There are no "bad guns". Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody — except bad people.
  • Interview on Meet the Press (18 May 1997)

• You could say that the paparazzi and the tabloids are sort of the "assault weapons" of the First Amendment. They're ugly, a lot of people don't like them, but they're protected by the First Amendment — just as "assault weapons" are protected by the Second Amendment.
  • Interview Fox News Channel (15 September 1997)

• You do not define the First Amendment. It defines you. And it is bigger than you. That's how freedom works. It also demands you do your homework. Again and again, I hear gun owners say, how can we believe anything the anti-gun media says when they can't even get the facts right? For too long, you have swallowed manufactured statistics and fabricated technical support from anti-gun organizations that wouldn't know a semi-auto from a sharp stick. And it shows. You fall for it every time.
  • Speech to the National Press Club (14 September 1997)

• I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can't understand it, don't like the sound of it, or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails. That's why the Second Amendment is America's first freedom.
  • Speech to the National Press Club (14 September 1997)

• Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder. Yet in essence, that is what you have asked our loved ones to do, through an ill-contrived and totally naive campaign against the Second Amendment.
  • Speech to the National Press Club (14 September 1997)

• Political correctness is tyranny with manners.
  • Speech at the Harvard Law School (1999), as quoted in "Appreciation : Charlton Heston" in TIME magazine (6 April 2008)

• Telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind.
  Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?
  Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe?
  It scares me to death and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason.
  You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that ... and abide it ... you are — by your grandfathers' standards — cowards.
  • Speech at Harvard Law School (16 February 1999)

• I remember a decade ago at my first annual meeting in St. Louis. After my banquet remarks to a packed house, they presented me with a very special gift. It was a splendid hand-crafted musket.
  I admit I was overcome by the power of its simple symbolism. I looked at that musket and I thought of all of the lives given for that freedom. I thought of all of the lives saved with that freedom. It dawned on me that the doorway to all freedoms is framed by muskets.
  So I lifted that musket over my head for all to see. And as flashbulbs popped around the room, my heart and a few tears swelled up, and I uttered five unscripted words. When I did, that room exploded in sustained applause and hoots and shouts that seemed to last forever. ... So as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those words again for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: From my cold dead hands!
  • Speech at NRA Convention in Charlotte North Carolina (20 May 2000)

• Sam is the only person I've ever physically threatened on a set.
  • On working with director Sam Peckinpah, as quoted in "(Westerns Channel Begins Production on Original Documentary Focusing on Western Films of Legendary Director Sam Peckinpah" (29 August 2003)

Los Angeles Times interview (1956)

"Moses Film Role Awes Portrayer" by Dan. L. Thrapp, in Los Angeles Times (28 October 1956)

• I always work on the theory that the audience will believe you best if you believe yourself. This meant that I had to come to understand Moses well enough to believe in my portrayal of him.

• To me Moses is all men grown to gigantic proportions.
  He was a man of immense ability, immense emotions, immense humanness and immense dedication. There is something of Moses in each of us — the more there is, the better we are.
  It is interesting to note that once Moses climbs Mt. Sinai and talks to God there is never contentment for him again. That is the way it is with us. Once we talk to God, once we get his commission to us for our lives we cannot be again content. We are happier. We are busier. But we are not content because then we have a mission — a commission, rather.

• Moses is the keystone to every man's ethical code. He was the first man of record in history to conceive of the law as separate from the will of a ruler, to choose whether a man should live by grace of law, or law by grace of man. In a literal sense Moses lives at every council table today.

Sunday Times interview (1990)

"Charlton Heston: Great sport with a line in heroic role models" by Jani Allan, in the Sunday Times (17 June 1990)

• It's fashionable for modern actors to talk about getting 'inside' a character. But you can't get to the inside without getting the outside right first.

• Celebrity is a corrosive condition for the soul. I have tried to restrain its inroads on me, but there are odd corners of my character that have been harmed.

• I used to think if it wasn't possible to be a family man and a totally dedicated artist, I'd rather be the former. I'm an idealist and a romantic.

• To be an actor you need four things: energy, concentration, a lot of luck and, of course, good roles.

• I have played some of the great men in history and I believe in the great man who does heroic deeds, even in these egalitarian times.

Video farewell (2002)

Video taped message, announcing that he had symptoms of Alzheimer's disease (9 August 2002)

• My dear friends, colleagues, and fans, my physicians have recently told me I may have a neurological disorder whose symptoms are consistent with Alzheimer's disease. So I wanted to prepare a few words for you now because when the time comes, I may not be able to.

• I have lived my whole life on the stage and screen before you. I found purpose and meaning in your response. For an actor that is no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can't part with you, which is why I won't exclude you from this stage in my life.
  For now, I'm not changing anything. I will insist on work when I can; the doctors will insist on rest when I must. If you see a little less spring in my step, if your name fails to leap to my lips, you will know why. And if I tell you a funny story for the second time, please laugh anyway.

• I'm neither giving up nor giving in. I believe I'm still the fighter that Dr. King and JFK and Ronald Reagan knew. But it's a fight I must someday call a draw. I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure.

• I also want you to know I'm grateful beyond measure. My life has been blessed with good fortune. I'm grateful I was born in America, that cradle of freedom and opportunity where a kid from the Michigan North Woods can work hard and make something of his life. I'm grateful for the greatest words ever written, that let me share with you the infinite scope of the human experience.
  As an actor, I'm thankful I have lived not one life, but many.

Film roles

• Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!
  • Planet of the Apes (1968)

• There is no phone ringing!
  • The Omega Man (1971)

• Soylent Green is people! It's people!
  • Soylent Green (1973)