Heston’s Charlottesville visit
by Lindsay Barnes
published 8:51pm Sunday Apr 6, 2008
published 8:51pm Sunday Apr 6, 2008
Write a letter to the editor
Legendary Hollywood actor Charlton Heston passed away last night at age 84. After an illustrious career that had already included portrayals of Moses in The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur in the film of the same name, George Taylor in Planet of the Apes, and even of Charlottesville’s own Thomas Jefferson in a little-known TV movie called The Patriots, Heston paid a visit to our town for the 1991 Virginia Film Festival. As former festival director Bob Gazzale recalled to the Hook last October, before Heston screened his Academy Award winning performance in Ben-Hur, a UVA student runner wept for joy after having fetching lip balm for the movie icon, exclaiming, “I just bought ChapStick for Moses!”
#
Isn’t he the guy who uttered the immortal line in Planet of the Apes, “Keep ‘em flying!”
(By the way, I thought Heston missed the Festival’s opening night Ben-Hur performance but appeared there via pre-recorded videotape and then showed up in Charlottesville the next day.)