Several suggestions were made over on my illustration Facebook page as to which movie tough guy I should tackle next, but since I've been watching all the Planet of the Apes movies recently, movie legend Charlton Heston was on my mind.
Sure, Heston wasn't a classic movie tough guy (at least in the same vein as my previous subjects like Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, etc.), but when I was deciding who to do this week I remembered a passage from a biography of J. Edgar Hoover I read a few years ago.
Apparently Heston--who was a big, vocal proponent of civil rights--was scheduled to appear at some sort of rally in Washington for such a cause in the early 1960s. He got a personal phone call from Hoover, who strongly suggested Heston not attend.
According to the story, Heston told Hoover in no uncertain terms to go screw himself, he was going, and he did. If that isn't a "tough guy" I don't know what is.
Sure, Heston wasn't a classic movie tough guy (at least in the same vein as my previous subjects like Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, etc.), but when I was deciding who to do this week I remembered a passage from a biography of J. Edgar Hoover I read a few years ago.
Apparently Heston--who was a big, vocal proponent of civil rights--was scheduled to appear at some sort of rally in Washington for such a cause in the early 1960s. He got a personal phone call from Hoover, who strongly suggested Heston not attend.
According to the story, Heston told Hoover in no uncertain terms to go screw himself, he was going, and he did. If that isn't a "tough guy" I don't know what is.
2 comments:
That's a great portrait in every respect…and it's particularly neat that it doesn't draw on Planetof the Apes-era Heston.
And you're so right. When Heston was leading the NRA and making some of his more extreme religious pronouncements, I heard more than one person complain that he was "stubborn" and "pigheaded" and "arrogant" and even though I believe he was completely wrong on those points, I always objected to those criticisms. I'd describe all he did for civil rights way before it was fashionable, and say it's wrong to call someone "principled" and "committed" only when you agree with them but then mock the exact same character traits when they serve a cause you're against. Even when I loathed a view endorsed by Mr. Heston, I admired the hell out of him for sticking his neck out for his beliefs with a sincerity and devotion very few manage.
I love the tough guy series. I vote Steve McQueen next!
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