Charlton Heston was a real movie star.
And he way overreached on the gun thing... not unlike The Church on birth control or The Left on smoking.
I grew up in the end part of his stardom. He was a near-comedic character in the less hip years before Watergate. But when he stood up for all men in Planet of the Apes, he did our species proud. Ben Hur is undeniable. And he gave the most vulnerable "performance" of his career opposite Michael Moore in a scene in Bowling for Columbine that made Moore's takedown of the icon - which did go way over the top even if the brutality that was ascribed to the sequence was also excessive - seem like a true changing of the guard, passing the baton from the old, confused, sad symbol of the right to the abusive self-righteous symbol of the left.
The guy was a physical mess as long as 15 years ago, like an athlete who took too many hits. And I do loathe his inflexible position on guns. But yeah, I am sad to hear he went... and he will be missed.
Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/04/i_guess_we_can.html