Turner Classic Movies Slots Charlton Heston Marathon

TCM Host Robert Osborne: Actor Was ‘Genuine Movie Star’

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/7/2008 2:44:00 PM

Turner Classic Movies slated a 15-hour marathon April 11-12 (2:30 p.m.-5:30 a.m. April 12) to salute the late Charlton Heston.

Heston, who died over the weekend at age 84, was an Oscar-winning actor whose imposing frame and voice made him the film industry's choice for a number of classic roles.

TCM's lineup includes an interview and lesser-known films -- The Buccaneer, Major Dundee, The Hawaiians (such tributes are circumscribed by the films to which a channel has rights) -- bracketing his Oscar-winning role in the title role of Ben Hur, salted for 9 p.m.

TCM host Robert Osborne was among the veteran industry reviewers tapped over the weekend to weigh in on Heston's impact on the industry. Osborne suggested that he had been built to fill the big screen.

"If he hadn't been so big and stalwart looking and well-built, he probably would not have had a fraction of the career he did," Osborne said. "He was a good enough actor that he fit into" those outsized roles -- Moses, Michelangelo, Ben Hur.

Osborne also called him “one of the nicest, most courteous gentlemen I ever met," and one who filled the bill as a "genuine movie star."