I met Charlton Heston once when in 1997 he was making a tour for a book he had done on the Bible and sites in the Holy Land. As Heston had strong local connections and, at least in his later life, politics quite different from mine, I thought that it would be interesting to talk with him on the radio as I was then working at Chicago's National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate.
When we called the publisher we made it clear that we were calling from an NPR station and that we would want to talk with Mr. Heston about his book but also about his early life and about his varied political activism and his role as a gun rights advocate. (He was not yet president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and his infamous "cold, dead hands" speech did not take place until 2000.) The publisher said that that was no problem and that Mr. Heston was always happy to talk about any subject as long as we did discuss the Bible book.
Heston was born in Evanston, Illinois, just on the northern border of Chicago, in 1924 and grew up there and in St. Helen, Michigan, and later in Chicago's North Shore suburbs, where he attended New Trier High School. Active in both high school and community theatre, he returned to Evanston to study at Northwestern University's School of Speech on a scholarship from the Winnetka Drama Club -- the photo at left shows him in an NU production of Hedda Gabler -- before leaving school in 1944 to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. That year he also married a fellow Northwestern thespian, Lydia Marie Clarke, who was a student of Alvina Krause.
Heston proved to be a remarkably open guest, eager to share stories of his Midwestern roots as well as his participation in the Civil Rights Movement at a time when such public involvement was significant and not without costs. At left is a picture of Heston with James Baldwin, Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte, and Sidney Poitier at the 1963 March on Washington. Before I could even ask him if he might record a membership spot announcement for our station he volunteered on air that he was "a great fan of NPR" and found it "one of the few places that took issues and debate seriously." The spot he recorded was clever and excellent and he did it in one take.
Another reminder that people are complex things.
Comments