In the Arena - Softcover

Heston, Charlton

3.88

220 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006387772 ISBN 13: 9780006387770

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1996

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The autobiography of one of Hollywood’s true greats which talks candidly about his childhood, his career, his development as an actor, the reality of making the many great films in which he has starred, and about his love for his family.

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From the Back Cover:

Charlton Heston, like the roles he has played on both stage and screen, has had an epic influence on American and on world cinema. He is one of the few true Hollywood greats. Now, looking back on a career that has spanned over half a century, Charlton Heston reflects on what it was like to live 'In the Arena 'His book is full of stories about his great contemporaries and co-stars, who include some of the most permanently famous stage and screen names of the past fifty years, and he writes with candour and warmth of the influences that shaped his early life: of a broken home, of a shy insecure young man who found in acting a way to express himself, and of Lydia who he met and married more than fifty years ago. Frank, thoughtful and highly entertaining, his book is the life story of a man who has stood firmly in the arena, sweating, bloodied, but himself.

‘Only someone of towering presence, and epic patience, could have endured the sheer mechanics of Heston's career. This comes through well in a book that confirms its author's rarity status. As De Mille put it: ‘You can always get good actors to play hard men. Heroes are harder.’
ALEXANDER WALKER, 'Evening Standard'

‘Compulsively readable...This is a book crammed with anecdotes and insights...Still with us, still acting, his ambitions undimmed, unrepentant about his strong and often unfashionable convictions, he is a sterling example of that lost era when stars did not aim to be the boy next door. They endured beyond the hype, weathered the changing style of Hollywood, and were each possessed of qualities that could not be duplicated. No ‘luvvie’, Chuck Heston continues to give value for money, on the page as on the screen.’
BRYAN FORBES, 'Daily Telegraph'

‘Charlton Heston is a prolific, decisive, elegant and often impassioned writer...The voice is unquestionably Heston's own-clear, supremely confident, eloquent, candid but also funny and sometimes even risqu�.’
LOS ANGELES TIMES

‘['In the Arena'] is orderly and detailed and as good a description of the strange business of making films as I have read. He writes without mock modesty and with a kindly if candid eye for his co-workers, most of whom he treats with a generosity rare in film memoirs.’
NATIONAL REVIEW

Synopsis:

Charlton Heston, like the roles he has played on both stage and on screen, has had a large infuence on both American and world cinema. He is famous throughout the world for his throughtful portrayal of biblical and historical heroes - Moses in "The Ten Commandments", Ben Hur, Mark Anthony and as Michelangelo in "The Agony and the Ectasy". In his memoirs, Charlton Heston reflects on his life, his career as an actor, and the political and personal principles which have influenced him. He tells stories of his contemporaries and co-stars, who include almost all the famous stage and screen names of the past 40 years.

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