It is with a heavy heart that I again find myself trying to eulogize here on SFQ an iconic figure that has been laid to rest. Charlton Heston passed away over the weekend in California. This profile on NPR: Heston as a Science Fiction actor fits with my experience of his work. The film that springs to mind for me is Planet of the Apes and its iconic final scene:

The image of Heston crouched in the surf looking up at the statue of liberty is deeply etched in my mind. Here is Taylor's realization that time has passed humanity by, that there really is no going back for him and that his species has laid itself low. His cry: "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!" is one full of such a combination of anger, pain and ultimately sorrow as to be instantly classic. The last moments here, the twist, cast a long shadow on every frame preceding.

It is of course fitting that it is the statue of Liberty that serves to alert Taylor that he has returned to Earth. The Statue of Liberty serves here the same function it did in the height of Immigration: it serves as a great signpost to those entering new and alien territory but in Taylor's case is it not the United States of America but a state bordering in that moment on madness and despair. It is to Charlton Heston's credit that just a few lines and a gesture can be so evocative. This ranks right up there with the close of Ender's Game for "Best Twist" in a work of SF. Surely Heston would have been remembered simply for his role as George Taylor, even without his other work both in SF (Soylent Green, Omega Man) or his mainstream work (Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, etc).