In the Arena: An Autobiography - Hardcover

Heston, Charlton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684803941 ISBN 13: 9780684803944

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1995

Synopsis

Describing a career that spans half a century, one of America's favorite actors tells of his childhood shyness, personal insecurities, early steps to Broadway and television, and behind-the-scenes accounts of his great epic films. 100,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

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 risqué.’
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

About the Author

Charlton Heston, like the roles he has played on both stage and screen, has had an epic influence on American and world cinema. With his career spanning over half a century, he may be regarded as one of the few true Hollywood greats.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684803941
• ISBN 13: 9780684803944
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1