Film Legend Charlton Heston Dead at 84
IMP News Wire Dated April, 07 2008

Charlton Heston, the Oscar winner who portrayed Moses and other heroic figures on film in the '50s and '60s and later championed conservative values as head of the National Rifle Association, has died. He was 84.

The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side.

Heston proved the ideal star with his large, muscular build, well-boned face and sonorous voice during the period when Hollywood was filling movie screens with panoramas depicting the religious and historical past.

"I have a face that belongs in another century," he often remarked.

The actor assumed the role of leader offscreen as well. He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild and chairman of the American Film Institute and marched in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

With age, he grew more conservative and campaigned for conservative candidates. In June 1998, Heston was elected president of the NRA, for which he had posed for ads holding a rifle.

Heston who once delivered a jab at then-President Clinton, saying, "America doesn't trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns." stepped down as NRA president in April 2003.

President Bush awarded Heston with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civil honor.

Heston also engaged in a lengthy feud with liberal Ed Asner during the latter's tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild. His latter-day activism almost overshadowed his achievements as an actor, which were considerable.

Heston lent his strong presence to some of the most acclaimed and successful films of the midcentury.

"Ben-Hur" won 11 Academy Awards, tying it for the record with the more recent "Titanic" (1997) and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003). He won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing "Ben-Hur."

Heston's other hits include: "The Ten Commandments," "El Cid," "55 Days at Peking" and "Planet of the Apes."

He liked to cite the number of historical figures he had portrayed, including Moses ("The Ten Commandments"), John the Baptist ("The Greatest Story Ever Told") and Michelangelo ("The Agony and the Ecstasy").

Heston made his movie debut in the 1940s in two independent films by a college classmate, David Bradley, who later became a noted film archivist. He had the title role in "Peer Gynt" in 1942 and was Marc Antony in Bradley's 1949 version of "Julius Caesar," for which Heston was paid $50 a week.

Publicist Michael Levine, who represented Heston for about 20 years, said the actor's passing represented the end of an iconic era for cinema. "If Hollywood had a Mount Rushmore, Heston's face would be on it," Levine said.

In 1944 he married another Northwestern drama student, Lydia Clarke, and after his army discharge in 1947, they moved to New York to seek acting jobs. Finding none, they hired on as codirectors and principal actors at a summer theater in Asheville, N.C.

Back in New York, both Hestons began finding work. With his strong 6-feet-2 build and craggily handsome face, Heston won roles in TV soap operas, plays ("Antony and Cleopatra" with Katherine Cornell) and live TV dramas such as "Julius Caesar," "Macbeth," "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Of Human Bondage."

Heston wrote several books: "The Actor's Life: Journals 1956-1976," published in 1978; "Beijing Diary: 1990," concerning his direction of the play "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" in Chinese; "In the Arena: An Autobiography," 1995; and "Charlton Heston's Hollywood: 50 Years of American Filmmaking," 1998.

Besides Fraser, the Hestons had a daughter, Holly Ann, born Aug. 2, 1961. The couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1994 at a party with Hollywood and political friends. They had been married 64 years when he died.

In late years, Heston drew as much publicity for his crusades as for his performances. In addition to his NRA work, he campaigned for Republican presidential and congressional candidates and against affirmative action.

He resigned from Actors Equity, claiming the union's refusal to allow a white actor to play a Eurasian role in "Miss Saigon" was "obscenely racist." He attacked CNN's telecasts from Baghdad as "sowing doubts" about the allied effort in the 1990-91 Gulf War.

At a Time Warner stockholders meeting, he castigated the company for releasing an Ice-T album that purportedly encouraged cop killing.

Heston wrote in "In the Arena" that he was proud of what he did "though now I'll surely never be offered another film by Warners, nor get a good review in Time. On the other hand, I doubt I'll get a traffic ticket very soon."

Some of Charlton Heston's Films
"Peer Gynt," 1942
"Julius Caesar," 1949
"Dark City," 1950
"The Greatest Show on Earth" 1952
"The Savage," 1952
"Ruby Gentry," 1952
"The President's Lady," 1953
"Pony Express," 1953
"Arrowhead," 1953
"Bad for Each Other," 1953
"The Naked Jungle" 1954
"Secret of the Incas," 1954
"The Far Horizons," 1955
"The Private War of Major Benson," 1955
"Lucy Gallant," 1955
"The Ten Commandments," 1956
"Three Violent People," 1957
"Touch of Evil," 1958
"The Big Country" 1958
"The Buccaneer" 1958
"The Wreck of the Mary Deare" 1959
"Ben-Hur," 1959
"El Cid," 1961
"The Pigeon That Took Rome," 1962
"Diamond Head," 1963
"55 Days at Peking," 1963
"The Greatest Story Ever Told" 1965
"Major Dundee," 1965
"The Agony and the Ecstasy," 1965
"The War Lord" 1965
"Khartoum," 1966
"Counterpoint," 1968
"Planet of the Apes," 1968
"Will Penny," 1968
"Number One," 1969
"Julius Caesar," 1970
"Beneath the Planet of the Apes," 1970
"The Hawaiians," 1970
"The Omega Man" 1971
"Call of the Wild," 1972
"Antony and Cleopatra," 1972 (also director)
"Skyjacked," 1972
"Soylent Green," 1973
"The Three Musketeers," 1974
"Airport 1975," 1974
"Earthquake," 1974
"The Four Musketeers" 1975
"The Last Hard Men," 1976
"Midway," 1976
"Two-Minute Warning," 1976
"The Prince and the Pauper" (or "Crossed Swords)," 1977
"Gray Lady Down," 1978
"Mountain Man," 1980
"The Awakening," 1980
"Solar Crisis," 1990
"Almost an Angel," 1990
"Wayne's World 2," 1993
"Tombstone," 1993
"True Lies," 1994
"In the Mouth of Madness," 1995
"Alaska," 1996
"Hamlet," 1996
"Hercules," 1997