Frankly, most of this doesn't sound like Heston was Ali's favorite actor as much as it sounds like Ali liked the kinds of films Heston was best known for: where he played larger-than-life figures, men of action and principle, those epic-sized heroes.
Let's look at your examples:
Ali saying, "They won't put me in no movies, won't put me in none of them, because if I make a movie, it's going to have to be like BEN-HUR."
Followed by, Parkinson then asked Ali who his favourite movie star was. "I like Charlton Heston's films!"
Both these show Ali admired Heston's movies, the kind of roles he played. Neither says Heston is his favorite actor. Parkinson may have asked him that question, but Ali's response was about Heston's films, not Heston himself.
The closest he gets in any of these quotes to calling Heston his favorite actor came when he called Heston into the ring during his workouts before the Quarry fight: "This is my friend, Charleston Heston," said Ali, muffing the first name. "Don't he look good? There's no weight on him. He's almost as pretty as I am." Pointing to Heston, he told the onlookers, "This is my idol!"
Yet here again, his admiration for Heston seems plainly based on his liking the kind of parts Heston played. He also admired Heston's athleticism and machismo. If Heston was his "favorite" it was because he liked the heroic image most of Heston's movies placed him in, more than Heston himself.
The last two quotes, "I know there are parts of the United States and Europe where I'm not popular ... but in the Third World nations, I'm Charlton Heston. I'm their John Wayne." and "Naturally, when this is on, won't nobody watch the other stations. You think I was a good boxer, wait'll you see my acting .... Charlton Heston is in trouble!", are simply more self-regardant boasting wherein he cites his images of heroic movie stars, in one case adding John Wayne to Charlton Heston.
The point is that Ali obviously admired Heston's movies, or more specifically, the type of characters he usually played. This may or may not have translated into Heston's being his "favorite" actor, but one has to understand the obvious context in which he made such statements. Ali's own words make his admiration for Heston's kind of characters plain. It's a short step from that to admiring Heston. But you're reading too much, and too much significance, into this handful of statements.
Add to this, as I'm sure you know, Ali was prone to repeating the same things over and over and over and over. He repeated the same poems, the same boasts, the same mantras, the same references to people, events, everything, incessantly, more and more as the years passed. Partly this was the result of incipient brain damage due to the pounding he took over the years as a boxer, but regardless, he obviously seized on his Heston comparison as he did on everything else and brought it up at any suitable opportunity. Clearly, his references were born less out of thoughtful esteem than out of a rather shallow admiration of the prototypical Heston (and, it appears, Wayne) movie characters he admired and, at some level, probably saw himself as; and as usual once his mind seized upon such references, they became part of the mutterings he would routinely sputter at any appropriate opportunity, just rote repetition divorced from much thought.
Bottom line is, I think you're allowing your personal preferences for both boxing and Heston to lead you to overstate the significance of Ali's few statements. I'm sure you could find other stars of whom Ali also spoke glowingly, undoubtedly for the same kind of reasons.
As to Nixon and Skyjacked, James, you're really overreaching here to find some significance:
Heston was on a promotional tour for SKYJACKED at the time, which, incidentally, he must have done well, because on 9 August 1972 Chuck received a message from President Nixon saying that he and his wife had just seen SKYJACKED in the White House theater and that they thoroughly enjoyed it. Nixon added that he hoped Heston would get an award for the film and thanked him for campaigning for him.
First, it's 100% certain that Chuck's promotional tour had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Nixon screening the film at the White House. Presidents or their aides don't choose films to run at the W.H. because of an actor's "promotional tour", about which they'd be unaware or too busy to care. Heston was a Nixon supporter, and Nixon had very conservative tastes in films and everything else -- particularly in the tumultuous "counter-culture" years of the late 60s and early 70s, during which Nixon ostentatiously set himself up as the embodiment of traditional American values, of the "silent majority". Nixon made a major point in '72 (when he was running for reelection) of being seen with older, conservative stars, the kind who appealed to older, conservative voters, and where he could get ex-Democrats who had once opposed him (Heston was but one -- Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis and several others also turned coat against their former party) -- so much the better. Many of Nixon's movie-star supporters weren't making many films any more, so when a film with one of them came along, it would be in Nixon's nature to watch it and make a point of complimenting the star on it. Skyjacked is an enjoyable but pretty routine movie, and Nixon wasn't stupid enough to actually believe that Heston deserved an award for his performance in it. It was just empty praise for one of his prominent supporters, geared to appeal to his bedrock constituency, and a bone of thanks tossed to Heston in return for campaigning for him, as Nixon himself said. (Co-star Walter Pigeon was another Nixon supporter, but he was a longtime Republican.)
Meanwhile, Nixon was busy placing such other prominent actors as Gregory Peck, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, Paul Newman and many more on his infamous Enemies List. Had Heston stayed true to the Democratic Party and not been a Nixon supporter, Skyjacked would not have been screened at the White House and Heston would almost certainly have ended up on the President's Enemies List too. You must stop reading so much into such minor matters!
Incidentally, you know the story -- a true one -- about how Nixon was so taken by the movie Patton that he had it screened in the White House five times over a couple of weeks in 1970. After each showing he kept telling his staff how Patton was a man of action, who never feared to make a decision, and that this was the kind of leadership America needed. He actually had his vicious (and later imprisoned) Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, order all White House staffers to see the movie. All this occurred just weeks before Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia, and Nixon himself cited Patton as what inspired him to take that decision -- a widely (and properly) derided reason. Later that year the Democratic nominee for the Senate in New York, Representative Richard Ottinger, remarked to reporters that we were governed by a President who invaded Cambodia after watching Patton, and concluded, "I'm just glad he didn't see The War of the Worlds!"
I wonder if Nixon thought of Skyjacked in 1974, when he was being flown back to California after resigning in disgrace, one jump ahead of impeachment and trial. Since you like trivia (as do I) and have an ability to retain such things (as do I, though not as great as yours), you might be interested to know that Nixon screened Skyjacked at the White House exactly two years to the day before he resigned!
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