I am looking for the speech where he says “from my cold, dead hands” for the first time. When I try to google it I either get a news story about the speech or speeches where he says the line, but not for the first time.
I think it was at an NRA dinner, April 29, 1989. He was presented with a flintlock as a gesture of appreciation for his support over the years of the NRA.
This from the St. Louis Post Dispatch the day after.
I know the quote very well, I just can’t find the whole speech.
There wasn’t a whole speech. He simply used the slogan of the NRA when given the award, much as he did later when attending other NRA functions(such as the Wikipedia link about him and his mentioning of John Kerry.)
Why do you think there was a whole speech?
Hmmm… that’s a good question. It is probably because I tracked down the speech from the Wikipedia article and found:
So I made the assumption that he used this quote before and that it was in another speech. I did not know it was an NRA slogan, I thought he made it up and got famous because he made up such a nice phrase.
This all makes more sense now. Thanks.
Slight nitpick, his first name is Charlton.
Another nitpick, “From my cold, dead hands” is not an NRA slogan. It has gained momentum of being a rallying cry on bumper stickers and was used as an ironic scene in the movie “Red Dawn”, where a Cuban soldier picks up a rifle from the dead hands of an American, and the camera pans up to show the bumper sticker on the dead mans truck.
:eek:
He got famous starring in movies. Lord knows he wasn’t a great actor, but…seriously?
That is how I found out about him. When he basically told Al Gore to go shove it.
Mr. Heston was quite renowned for a number of things prior to accepting the presidency of the NRA.
Are you saying that you literally never heard of him before? 
I was incorrect about it being a slogan of the NRA. I misread/typed from that article.
I don’t think his name is Charles. It’s something between “Charles” and a charlaton! 
We geezers forget what it’s like to be young, which apparently Lakai is. I was surprised that he didn’t know the phrase “from my cold dead hands” was common before Charlton Heston said it, then doubly surprised when he didn’t know Mr Heston had a previous career. But that speech was in 1989, which was back when some posters here were poopin’ yellow. I think 1989 was about when I read the first Straight Dope book.
CurtC has it right as far as how young I am. I was 3 years old when Heston first said the phrase in April of 1989.
Though I knew Heston had a previous career, but that was only after I looked him up on wikipedia about a week ago. So yes, panache45, I literally never heard of him until I had to look into the NRA for some reason and then saw a news report of him saying that phrase.
I hope this clears up what I am perceiving as disbelief.