Charlton Heston thrusts out his chiseled jaw, tips his eagle-beaked profile toward the light, narrows his steely eyes and folds his arms akimbo. "'Hard' is what I do best," says the veteran actor, explaining how he poses for photographs. "I don't do 'nice.'" No matter that Heston is, in fact, in pain, only days away from a hip-replacement operation, and has been limping around his Beverly Hills home in stretch Speedo slippers. No matter that a toupee, capped teeth and a partly unbuttoned shirt reveal a touch of vanity. At 73, the man best known for playing prophets and warriors is embracing a new role with gusto: president of the 127-year-old National Rifle Association. As poster pinup for America's muscular gun lobby, he isn't expected to do "nice."
No Hollywood prop man could design a more fitting set for the top rifleman than Heston's study, situated on a ridge overlooking Coldwater Canyon, with a view of the distant Pacific Ocean. Models of Air Force bombers and spent .50-cal. machine-gun casings adorn a side table ("I was a gunner in the war"). A portrait of Hemingway ("He was not a very nice man") hangs above a cartoon from the strip Hagar the Horrible ("with whom I have great sympathy"). Stacked around his desk like a fortress are volumes on the Boer War, the Civil War and World War II; biographies of the Founding Fathers; bound editions of the American Hunter; tough-guy novels by Larry McMurtry, Elmore Leonard and Patrick O'Brien. And, yes, the souvenirs: the ax, dripping fake blood, from a production of Macbeth and the sword from the movie El Cid. ("All things I've killed with or been killed with.") A statue of Andrew Jackson, given to him by the director Cecil B. DeMille, recalls another epic role. "Jackson was one of my favorite Presidents," says Heston, grinning. "One mean son of a bitch."
From this cluttered bastion over the past two decades, Heston has fought crusades on issues ranging from gun owners' rights and right-to-work laws (he's for them) to nuclear freezes and raunchy rap music (he's against them). He has flung rhetorical grenades at Bill Clinton and, with funds from his personal political-action committee, ArenaPAC, he has sallied forth to campaign for conservative candidates, 54 in 21 states during the past election cycle. Now, with a national stage at his disposal, Heston has vowed to wage "a cultural war" in which gun control is only the first line of skirmish. At issue is nothing less than how Americans define themselves. From a wall festooned with flintlock rifles, Heston takes down a skinning knife made from a deer antler. "It was given to me when I was made a blood brother of the Miniconjou Sioux in 1951," he explains. He fingers it lovingly. And then the actor, who traces his Scots ancestors back to 18th century Canada, exclaims with sudden passion, "I'm pissed off when Indians say they're Native Americans! I'm a Native American, for chrisakes!"