As the decades have passed since Charlton Heston acted at Mount Gretna during the summer of 1948, stories about his short stay in the picturesque Lebanon County village have become legend.
Two memories have surfaced just since the actor, who later played the film roles of Ben-Hur and Michelangelo, died Saturday night at age 84.
Heston was only 24 when Lancastrians Stan and Irene Buch encountered him that summer. He was sitting against a tree diligently studying his play lines near Mount Gretna's old Jigger Shop.
"Even the biggest and best," says Stan Buch, "must start somewhere."
And Bob Thompson, an aide to state Sen. Gibson Armstrong, says Heston spoke fondly of Mount Gretna when Thompson interviewed him on radio station WLPA in the mid-1980s.
"He was here on a book tour, but he seemed to keep going back to (talk about) Mount Gretna," Thompson recalls.
What Thompson remembers most vividly from that interview is that Heston said all actors were told they should not cross one particular street while strolling through Mount Gretna.
"The people in the town were concerned that the actors would go after their young daughters," Thompson says.
The Scribbler is going to go out on a short limb here and speculate about that dividing street.
It must have been Pinch Road, which separates Chautauqua from Camp Meeting. Camp Meeting, a historically religious settlement with a tabernacle, had an entirely different focus from Chautauqua, where Heston appeared in the old playhouse.
"You think of Charlton Heston as Moses, and he wasn't allowed to cross the street," marvels Thompson.
Of course, Heston's identification with Moses in the movie of that name came along later. In 1948, Heston was just another struggling young actor. He and his wife, actress Lydia Clarke, came down from New York to work in summer stock.
There is no question that some Mount Gretna residents treated the visiting actors as second-class citizens.
Henry Homan, who was prop manager at Mount Gretna when Heston acted there, recalled the actors' status in an interview in the early 1990s with New Era reporter Jane Holahan.
"Actors in those days were not very welcome around Gretna," Homan said, "mainly because of the way they dressed - they looked pretty scruffy. Today, of course, nobody would notice."
Time changes most things.
Six decades after Heston and his wife appeared at the old Gretna playhouse, several owners of Chautauqua cottages are proud to say Heston slept or visited there.
His primary cottage was at 102 Brown Ave. in Chautauqua. The late Mary Sell rented the cottage to the Hestons.
Roger Groce, who prepares Mount Gretna's e-mail newsletter, several years ago reported an encounter between Sell and Heston.
Sell had given the Hestons strict orders about what they could and could not do in that cottage.
One day Sell stopped by and discovered the actor eating peanut butter straight from a jar. That behavior was not on the approved list. Sell let Heston know he had crossed a different kind of street into forbidden territory.
Heston also apparently stayed temporarily at 206 Harvard Ave., and he visited 104 Harvard Ave. to drink beer with that cottage's owners.
To those of us who grew up as Charlton Heston was making his "Moses movies," the tall actor with the resonating voice always seemed larger than life.
But in the summer of 1948, he was just another suspect actor and peanut butter dipper spending the summer in a restricted area.
CONTACT US: jbrubaker@LNPnews.com or 291-8781
