Chuck Heston passes

I met Chuck Heston a few times years ago when he would come to a PEN fundraiser we used to give at Harry’s Bar in Century City and officiate at the Hemingway writing contest. Same old stuff. Lot of people writing “I met Harry and it was good.” That kind of thing. I looked down on Chuck in those days because he was a Republican and I thought they were mostly dumb. (Sorry, Chuck, I was the idiot.) Anyway, Heston himself was always gracious. So was I, actually, because he was, after all, Ben Hur and Moses. And besides that he was Ramon Miguel ‘Mike’ Vargas in Welles’ Touch of Evil. With a credit like that, you don’t have to do anything else. Requiescat in pace.