Word: hollywood
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...movie really runs on Dennis Quaid's misanthropic conviction. He's one of those second-tier stars who has generally not been treated well by Hollywood. But whether he's called upon to play mulish, churlish or just to do some hard-charging action, we always sense an underlying decency in him - he has a good soldier quality that can be very appealing. In a way, his work is emblematic of the movie as a whole. There's nothing world shattering about Smart People. No one is ever going to call it a "must see" movie...
With his regal posture, searing blue eyes, perfect jawline and a baritone voice bred for noble declarations, Heston was the ideal vessel for Hollywood grandeur. In the 1950s and 60s, the era of the movie epic - those three-hour extravaganzas with a cast of thousands and the passionate enunciation of high ideals - he was the epic hero; it's almost impossible to imagine the genre without him. To any of these films he added millions in revenue, plenty of muscle and 10 I.Q. points...
...Northwestern student, and joined the Army Air Force, serving two years as a radio operator. On Broadway in 1947, he played in Antony and Cleopatra with Katharine Cornell (who, the year before, had done Candida with the young Marlon Brando). He did early TV and soon was in Hollywood...
...venture beyond the epic. He made plenty of Westerns, some important science-fiction films, a few comedies (for which he was constitutionally unsuited). And he was willing to fight for directors he believed in. He assured the financing of Touch of Evil, Orson Welles' most satisfying post-Citizen Kane Hollywood film, by agreeing to star in it. He also offered to give back part of his salary so Sam Peckinpah could finish Major Dundee as he'd planned. (The story goes that the producers took the money but didn't allow the extra shooting. Even if it's not true...
That stance earned him death threats in punk rock songs and, if not pariah status in Hollywood, then the image of a cranky grandpa. Which hardly flustered Heston; he'd been playing the righteous loner for too long to lose sleep from exile by the reigning Hollywood Left. ("Political correctness," he said in a 1999 speech at the Harvard Law School, "is tyranny with manners.") When Michael Moore came to the actor's home and confronted him, for the climactic scene of the 2002 pro-gun-control documentary Bowling for Columbine, Heston looked both gracious and stern, perplexed and frail...