Heston

... is now soylent green.

Not a great actor, really, but still, a great actor (in the “big” sense). Larger than life, with a face that could part the waters and a voice that could blow up the planet. No matter how much as I disliked (despised, actually) his politics, I did come to admire the fierce sincerity of his convictions.

He was known for his loyalty and idealism (he foreited his salary on Major Dundee to keep Sam Peckinpah in the director's chair). And as an icon, he was the closest the Right ever came to having their own Gregory Peck. In fact, there's a great scene between Peck and Heston in the epic western The Big Country that sums up the two men perfectly:

Ranch foreman Heston, jealous of Peck's engagement to his boss's daughter, tries to goad Peck into a fight in front of all the other ranch hands (as well as the girl and her father). When Peck refuses to fight in front of an audience, and even lets Heston call him a coward, the girl is humiliated and furious with him for “dishonoring” her. Peck decides to leave the ranch, but first goes to Heston and tells him “there's a little business unfinished between us.”

The two men duke it out in the middle of the night, in the middle of the prairie, with no audience and no “prize” on the line. The scene is shown in wide shot without music — two little men scuffling the dust like ants, dwarfed by the expansive and impassive landscape. They beat on each other until they're both unable to stand, then collapse in the dirt, bruised and bloodied and winded. Heston, having obviously underestimated his opponent, is as gracious as his character allows: “You sure take a long time to say goodbye.”

Peck's answer is perfect: “Tell me — what did we prove?”

No actor's passing has affected me the way Peck's did, but losing Heston (and, only 2 weeks ago, Richard Widmark) just hammers home how very close we are to the true finale of a cinematic era. Only a few more obits, and the book will be closed. And of those remaining, I can think of only one of Heston's stature — Kirk Douglas.

(I do not count Paul Newman, even though he and Heston are only a year apart. In my own personal and highly biased view of American movies, Heston is the last book of the Old Testament, and Newman is the first book of the New.)