History Charlton Heston was an American actor. He gained stardom for his leading man roles in numerous Hollywood films including biblical epics, science-fiction films and action films In the 1950s and early 1960s, he was one of a handful of Hollywood actors who openly denounced racism and he was also an active supporter of the civil rights movement. Some context: at this moment he's between jobs. He's signed on for Major Dundee but isn't happy with the script - he says the female role is artificial and contrived. On November 12, Heston visited Stan Laurel at his apartment in Santa Barbara talk about him collecting a Screen Actors Guild Award but the comedian's health prevents this and Danny Kaye accepts in his stead.
In this moment he's also still a Democrat. He wouldn't join the Republicans until 1987, when he founded a conservative political action committee supporting Ronald Reagan. Heston was a five-term president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), from 1998 to 2003. After announcing that he had Alzheimer's disease in 2002, he retired from acting and the NRA presidency.
November 22. I was in Walter's office, on the phone, when one of his staff ran in, stammering, "I just heard Kennedy's been shot!" It's a blind, brutal, pointless act, and because of it we're much less than we were, or might have been. If you believe in our system, then you have to believe it won't fail because of this, but it will falter. Today, surely, we're all faltering.
November 23. New York. I was given a purpose to carry me through this dark weekend, which I seized on eagerly. ABC called me this morning to fly to New York and take part in a memorial service they're rushing to air tomorrow. I spent the flight poring fruitlessly through my Shakespeare concordance looking for meaningful lines. In a meeting with ABC at the apartment, we chose some Psalms, and tentatively, some Frost. Kennedy liked Frost.
November 24. I spent the morning redacting four Psalms . . . the nintieth, the ninety-first, the one hundred and twenty first, and the twenty-third . . . into one whole, which seemed apt. I also read "Stopping by Woods" and "Fire and Ice," from Frost. The poems seemed to me to say something. The program was . . . worth doing, I think. It's all we can do. 1 was one of the lucky few in those first numb days. I had something specific to do that could be called a response to the shock we all felt.
November 25. New York/Los Angeles. I watched the caisson roll down Pennsylvania Avenue on TV while I dressed to go to the airport. Before we took off, there was a minute of silence there, and then we flew west, ahead of the sun, across the land he led, well or ill, but strongly, for less time than he deserved. Now we have to do, as all men must, the best we can.
November 26. Los Angeles. The world, or at least my experience of it, slowly began to return to normal, though the waste of that tough man's death still stabs as you pick up the threads you dropped on Friday. I read through the second version of MAJOR DUNDEE which is . . . not much better, I guess, and did, really, not much else. I played with my son a little. We're building a model of an archaeological dig. This seems very important.
[Source: The Actor's Life, Charlton Heston : Journals, 1956-1976.]
[via Farran Smith Nehme on Bluesky. You can read a review of the diaries on Neglected Books.]
