Charlton Heston

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

June 11, 2021 by Robert J. Avrech 7 Comments

“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.”
—John Wayne (born Marion Robert Morrison; 1907 – 1979)

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

December 18, 2015 by Robert J. Avrech 13 Comments

“I always felt I was a nobody, and the only way for me to be somebody was to be—well, somebody else. Which is probably why I wanted to act.” —Marilyn Monroe — “I always felt I was a nobody, and the only way for me to be somebody was to be—well, somebody else. Which is probably why I wanted to act.”
—Marilyn Monroe, Photo by Elliott Erwitt, 1956

Husband Shoots Two Bank Robbery Suspects Who Kidnapped Him, His Wife

August 5, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 6 Comments

It happened in Texas.

A free citizen under siege by two criminals defended himself and his wife by force of arms.

Will Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, or Barack Hussein Obama now lecture us about the evils of guns? Will they tell us that they could have been these two kidnap victims who fought back?

Will The New York Times cover this story?

No, no, and no.

The race hustlers and gun control advocates will never acknowledge that the Second Amendment is a constitutional, G-d given right that allows free citizens to stay free from the tyranny of government and the tyranny of criminals.

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1960s: Spartacus

July 26, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 30 Comments

Kirk Douglas in Spartacus. — Kirk Douglas in *Spartacu*s.

We continue our survey of the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1960s.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s, click here.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940s, click here.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s click here.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1920s click here.

2. Spartacus, 1960

He wanted Hur.

More than anything, Kirk Douglas yearned to play Ben Hur. But director William Wyler had another actor in mind for Hollywood’s most coveted role. Adding insult to injury, Wyler offered Douglas the mustache-twirling role of Hur’s enemy, the villainous Messala. His pride wounded, Kirk Douglas refused to play a supporting role — not even to Charlton Heston, Hollywood’s supernova star.

Years later, Douglas confessed: “That was what spurred me to do it [Spartacus], in a childish way—the ‘I’ll-show-them’ sort of thing.”

Kirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovich Demsky, an impoverished Jewish kid who remained angry and resentful of authority his entire career.

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s: Touch of Evil

April 4, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 22 Comments

We continue our survey of the twenty greatest movies of the 1950s.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940s, click here.

For a listing of the greatest movies of the 20s and 30s click here.

17. Touch of Evil, 1958

In one of the most effective opening sequences ever filmed, the camera focuses in close-up on a bomb being primed and placed in the trunk of a car. The camera pulls back, cranes up, and follows the car down the seedy strip of a Mexican-American bordertown. Soon, the camera powers down to eye level and picks up a strolling couple, newlyweds Mike and Susan Vargas (Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh). He’s a Mexican drug enforcement official.