I’ve tried to look for this and but came up empty, but. . .
Did Robinson know he was dying from cancer when he took the role in this movie. Almost a case of art imitating life–or death, in this case.
I didn’t know he was dying of cancer. You are right. Creepy.
Though I puke on Charles Heston, the concept of the movie was great [and useable, nowadays] imho.
Charlton? Why?
From In The Arena, Heston’s autobiography, page 477
"Eddie knew he was dying when he undertook Soylent Green, though none of us did. He sat in a chair on the sound stage all day, seldom going back to his trailer, talking to ther other actors, the crew people, Dick and Walter. I thin he wanted to feel the banter behind the cameras once more too, not just the work. I remember him listening to a couple of young actors bitching about the boring waits between setups while the shot’s laid out and lit.
He grinned, “You know, I’ve always figured the waiting is what they pay me for. The acting I do free.”
Heston really liked Robinson. He’d worked with him before. Later, on page 478, he says
“So finally we came to his last scene. Eddie knew it was truly his last scene; he would never again speak a line of dialogue for the turning cameras, the tuned mikes and focused lights. What’s more, it was his death scene.”
And finally
We wrapped early, after covering the close angles, and held a little wrap party for Eddie. For us, he was finishing in the film. For Eddie, he was finishing as an actor, standif for the last time on a sound stage, where he’ lived so richly, for so much of this life. Twelve days later he was dead. No actor could ask for a better way to go.
I respectfully submit that a man who could write with such sensitivity about a fellow actor, in a profession known for enormous egos, does not deserve to be “puked on.” Heston’s social and political ideas may be labeled conservative. But one can agree to disagree. One person is not bad just because another holds differing opinions.
That is, of course your opinion.
Obviously it’s his opinion; otherwise why would he have said it? You don’t “respectively submit” somebody else’s opinion. If you intended to express a differing opinion, you failed to articulate it.
Charlton Heston was a real screen presence, and is also a flesh-and-blood, flawed human being; watching one of his movies, I don’t care about his politics anymore than I care that Errol Flynn was a bit of an SOB when I’m watching Captain Blood.
Robinson was truly a great actor, not just a tough-guy. Something that affected me when I saw Soylent Green in 1973 was the thought that Robinson’s character was my contemporary; the movie is set, as I recall, in 2022, when I’ll be 62. Not a great movie, but there’s real pathos in his character, and it’s a fine performance.
It’s obvious that gum is not a Heston fan. Baker suggested that gum’s opinion was wrong because Heston apparently said something nice about someone else one time. I replied with what I did because I disagreed with Baker’s stance. I’m not a fan of Heston either and nothing he said, or didn’t say, nice or not, would not change that opinion.
Just because a person does a nice thing, it doesn’t make them a nice person.
I love Edward G., who is responisble for what I consider the single best line-delivery ever spoken in a motion picture.
From THE TEN COMMANDMENTS:
“Where’s yer Gahd of Israel NOW? Nnyaah! Nnyaah!”
Mr. Blue Sky, I wasn’t trying to change anyone’s opinion, or asking them to be his fan. Like and dislikes are beyond reason.
But the example I gave was not a one time incident for Heston.
In his book about the only time he criticized any fellow actor it was for poor work habits, such as being late or unprepared for rehearsels for plays or movies. He has valued as friends people whose politics were vastly different than his own, such as Gregory Peck. A lot of people don’t know how he participated in the civil rights movement. He speaks of Martin Luther King, somewhat ironically, as “a special man, put on earth, I do believe, to be a twentieth century Moses for his people.” After he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial when King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech Heston said “In a long life of activism in support of some good causes, I’m proudest of having stood in the sun behind that man, that morning.”
Charlton Heston’s real first name is Charles.
But Baker, you don’t understand–it’s so much easier to reduce an individual to a one-dimensional political boogeyman. People couldn’t possibly be more complicated, can they? Especially a celebrity!
Actually, it’s not Charles.
His birth name was John Carter. His father was Russell Carter, his mother’s maiden name was Charlton. When he was a young boy his parents divorced. His mother remarried to a man named Chet Heston.
When the family moved to Chicago and he was in high school he was embarrassed at his situation and began using his step-father’s name to avoid questions as to why their names were different. And then he began using his mother’s name to go with it.