| Show winning Oscar-winning actor Charlton Heston 84 dies Robert W. W Susan King Los Angeles Times Tunes Charlton Heston the winning Oscar-winning actor who achieved stardom playing than life figures including Moses Michelangelo and Andrew Jackson and went on to become an unapologetic gun advocate and darling of conservative causes has died He was 84 Heston died Saturday at his Beverly Hills home hoine said family spokesman Bill Powers In 2002 he had been diagnosed with symptoms similar to those of Alzheimer's disease With a booming baritone voice the tall ruggedly handsome actor delivered his signature role as the prophet Moses in Cecil B. B DeMille's 1956 Biblical extravaganza The Ten Commandments raising a rod over his head as God miraculously parts the Red Sea Heston won the Academy Award for best actor in another religious blockbuster in BenHur BenHur BenHur Ben Hur racing four white horses at top speed in one of the cinemas cinema's legendary action sequences the minute 15 chariot race in which his character a proud and noble Jew competes against his childhood Roman friend Heston stunned the entertainment world in August 2002 when he made a poignant and moving videotaped address announcing his illness Late in life Heston's stature as a political firebrand overshadowed his acting He became demonized by gun-control gun advocates and liberal Hollywood when he became president of the National Rifle Association in 1998 Heston answered his critics in a now-famous now pose that mimicked Moses' Moses parting of the Red Sea But instead of a rod Heston raised a flintlock over his head and challenged his detractors to pry the rifle from my cold dead hands Like the chariot race and the bearded prophet Moses Heston will be best remembered for several indelible cinematic moments playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with Orson Welles in the oil fields in Touch of Evil his rant at the end of Planet of the Apes when he sees the destruction of the Statue of Liberty his discovery that Green is people in the fi hit Soy lent Green and the dead Spanish hero on his steed in El Cid The New Yorkers Yorker's film critic Pauline Kael in her review of Planet of the Apes wrote All this wouldn't be so forceful orso or orso orso so funny if it weren't for forthe forthe forthe the use of Charlton Heston in the leading role With his perfect lean-hipped lean powerful body Heston is isa isa isa a like god-like hero built for strength he is an archetype of what makes Americans win He represents American power and he has the profile of an eagle For decades the foot 6 2 Heston was a towering figure in the world of movies television and the stage He was the screen hero of the and a proven in epics and anda a pleasing combination of piercing blue eyes and tanned beefcake David Thomson wrote in his book The New Biographical Dictionary of Film Heston also was blessed by working with legendary directors such as DeMille in The Greatest Show on onEarth onEarth onEarth Earth and again in The TheTen TheTen TheTen Ten Commandments Welles in Touch of Evil Sam in Major Dundee William Wyler in The Big Country and Hur Ben George Stevens in The Greatest Story Ever Told Franklin Schaffner in inThe inThe inThe The War Lord and Planet of the Apes and Anthony Mann in El Cid Four or five of those men would be on anybody's anybody all- all time great list Heston said in a 1983 interview And if i iI f I picked up one scrap one piece of business from each of them then today I would d be a hell of a director John Charles Carter r was born Oct 4 1923 in i n Evanston Ill His father Russell Whitford Carter moved the family to St St. Helen Mich where Heston lived an almost almos t idyllic boyhood hunting huntin g and fishing He entered Northwestern rn University's School o of f Speech in 1941 on a scholarship from the drama dram a club While there he fell in inlove inlove i ilove n love with a young speech h student named Lydia Clarke They were married marrie d de March 14 1944 after h he e had enlisted in the Arm Army Anny y Air Forces Their union was wa ys s one of the most durable in to Hollywood lasting 64 years year s in a town known for its it s highly publicized divorces romances and remarriages After the war he went wen wenton t on countless auditions a aa as asa asa s a stage actor in New York His professional name nam e was a combination of hi his s mothers mother's maiden name Charlton and the last name nam of his stepfather Chester Cheste r Heston He made his Broadway y debut opposite legendary stage actress Katharine Cornell in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra as Caesars Caesar's aide- aide de Heston found steady employment in the new medium of television His big break occurred in 1949 when he appeared in n the CBS live Studio One production of Shakespeare's Shakespeare s 's Julius Caesar In 1949 he attracted the attention of veteran film producer Hal Wallis Without an audition Wallis signed Heston to an independent contract for five pictures with the option he could accept other roles Heston's first picture for Wallis was the 1950 film noir Dark City opposite femme fatale Lizabeth Scott He played a troubled World War II veteran and the film did respectable business But it was his chance meeting on the Paramount Pictures lot with DeMille that propelled Heston to stardom The role that the flamboyant director wanted him for for was the rugged circus manager in the 1952 top big-top spectacular The Greatest Show on Earth which won the Academy Award for best picture Over the next three years Heston made 11 II movies playing Buffalo Bill Cody in Pony Express and Andrew Jackson in The Presidents President's Lady Then DeMille entered his life again casting Heston as Moses in The Ten Commandments My choice was strikingly confirmed DeMille wrote when I had a sketch made maden of Charlton Heston in a white beard and happened to set it beside a photograph of Michelangelo's famous statue of Moses The resemblance was amazing and it was not merely an external likeness He wasn't the only Heston in the film His baby son Fraser made his screen debut as the infant Moses who is carried downstream in a basket The Ten Commandments a blockbuster hit was followed by Touch of Evil and The Big Country Then came Ben Ironically though it was arguably Heston's most famous role and the only one that earned him himan an Oscar he was not the first actor considered Burt Lancaster Paul Newman and Rock Hudson were under consideration for the therole therole therole role of heroic Judah Ben- Ben Hur Hut The films film's breathtaking chariot race directed by legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt took five weeks to film and required extras The film won to win 11 Oscars including best picture and best director for Wyler Playing than life heroes seemed to carry carryover carryover carryover over into real-life real politics for Heston He was one of the major Hollywood stars who marched with the Rev Martin Luther King Jr during the civil rights era But Heston's politics soon veered right and he became an admirer of conservative Sen Barry Goldwater of Arizona who was the Republican Party nominee for president in 1964 My politics politics' haven't changed it was the Democratic Party that changed the actor said Always a political animal Heston relished his role as a lightning rod for criticism over his passionate defense of gun gun ownership He once told Times In Inthis Inthis Inthis this country if someone breaks into your house you can shoot them And I would do that in a second if my wife were back there sleeping and someone broke in in In 1998 with his acting career waning Heston became president of the National Rifle Association and instantly became one of the more politically polarizing fig figures res in America During his year five-year reign as president Heston vowed to push the group back into the mainstream of American politics His name was so synonymous with the defense of guns and gun owners that Michael Moore sought him out for foran foran foran an interview in his 2002 Academy winning Award-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine But the aging Heston walked out of the onscreen onscreen onscreen on on- screen interview as Moore peppered him with probing questions about the nations nation's gun use and the usually unflappable actor seemed angry and flustered Though his film fihn work occupied most of his career he never abandoned his theatrical roots He was a mainstay for years on on onstage stage especially at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles tackling everything from Eugene O'Neill's Long Days Day's Journey into Night Robert Bolts Bolt's A Man Manfor Manfor Manfor for All Seasons and and Macbeth with star co-star Vanessa Redgrave Although Heston had fond memories of working with Welles Wyler and DeMille he did not always get along with filmmakers es especially the scrappy hard hard- living S Sam m who directed him in the 1965 intense western Major Dundee As Heston recalled it in his autobiography the actor took umbrage after changed directions and swore at the actor for disobeying his command Heston drew his saber and rode speed full-speed at the director who leaped aside only moments before the wielding sword-wielding actor galloped past himI himI himI him I cant can't believe I would have actually ridden Sam down let alone him Heston wrote But ButI I was vas as angry as I can remember being in my life Heston would call Major Dundee a disappointing film Despite his jawed granite jawed Moses-like Moses image Heston was not above poking fun at himself In the twilight of his career he was a jovial two-time two host of Saturday Night Live and had a cameo as the good actor in Waynes World 2 and even appeared as himself in a 1998 episode of the hit NBC sitcom Friends Although his days as the leading man were over he worked steadily in small but interesting roles including the one-eyed one CIA director in James Camerons Cameron's True Lies the Player King Kingin y in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet a powered high-powered 1 football commissioner in Oliver Stones Stone's On Any Sunday and an appearance in ape attire in Tim Burtons Burton's 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes Besides the Oscar Heston 1 j received numerous US U.S. and international awards and honors among them the Hollywood Foreign Press Associations Association's Cecil B. B DeMille Award the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Science's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award In 2003 he was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President j Bush In later years Heston j battled physical ailments i In 1996 he underwent 1 hip replacement surgery and two years later he was treated for prostate cancer 3 In 2000 he revealed in the j National Enquirer Enquirer- tabloid that he had entered a rehab clinic for a drinking problem In addition to his wife and son Heston is survived by a daughter Holly Heston Rochell and three i grandchildren j |
