I liked the title of ninme's tribute, and Heston's letter to the Weekly Standard about "the real" Shakespeare is lovely, and gives you a sense of the man. Couldn't agree more with Heston's remark:
Being a writer, Sobran misreads Shakespeare as academics do: He treats him as a writer. I know, there he is on the page, but that's not where he or his plays live. Shakespeare leaps alive in air, in the spoken sound of his words.Curtsy to Powerline, which collects other worthy links.
I think I've mentioned previously how much I enjoyed Heston as Thomas More in a tv version of A Man for All Seasons. Nothing against Paul Scofield's wonderful performance (and the latter production is better overall), but St. Thomas was called "the merry More," and Heston captures the spirit of the historical figure better I think. Coincidentally, Paul Scofield just passed away too --another actor who managed to be a decent man.
Scofield was an unusual star — a family man who lived almost his entire life within a few miles of his birthplace in southern England and hurried home after work to his wife and children. He didn't seek the spotlight, gave interviews sparingly, and at times seemed to need coaxing to venture out, even onto the stage he loved.
But, he insisted in The Sunday Times in 1992, "My reclusiveness is a myth.... Yes, I've turned down quite a lot of parts. At my age you need to weed things out, but the idea that I can't be bothered anymore with acting — that's quite absurd. Acting is all I can do. An actor: That's what I am."
Richard Burton said of him:
Of the 10 greatest moments in the theater, eight are Scofield's.
Update: Cacciaguida, also on Heston & Scofield. Here's an interesting interview Heston gave to Ken Masugi while he was visiting at the Ashbrook Center. And Bill Rusher's remembrance of his friend is nice. I liked this, on why Heston never ran for Senate, as some were urging him for awhile: "Well," he replied, "my family is divided on the question. My son wants me to run, and my wife doesn't. But do you realize, Bill" -- and now his eyes were very serious -- "if I were elected to the Senate, I could never play Macbeth again?" At that, I stopped urging him to run. If the acting profession meant as much to him as it clearly did, I didn't want to have even a small part in dissuading him from it.
