Actor, Activist And Target of Michael Moore Dead at 83Academy Award-winning actor Charlton Heston passed away yesterday. His film career spanned move than five decades and included more than 85 roles, including Moses in "The Ten Commandments" and the title role in "Ben Hur."
Heston is also remembered by many for his conservative activism and tenure as president of the National Rifle Association.
No cause of death has been announced, however, Heston said in 2002 that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease. In a message at the time, he told fans, "I've lived my whole life on the stage and screen before you. I've found purpose and meaning in your response. For an actor there's no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can't part with you."
With his deep voice and noble physique, Heston was for five decades the symbol of confident authority on film. He was a believeable white Moses in "The Ten Commandments" and won an incredibly riveting chariot race in "Ben-Hur."
Of more than 85 movie parts, "Ben-Hur" (1959) was a career-defining performance. It won 11 Oscars, including best actor for Heston, who played a Jewish prince seeking revenge on those who harmed his family and sent him into slavery.
Heston's physical stature was crucial to grand-scale and adventure films in the 1960s. He was Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel in "The Agony and the Ecstasy"; an 11th-century Spanish warrior in "El Cid"; British Gen. Charles "Chinese" Gordon fighting an Islamic warrior priest in "Khartoum"; and an astronaut held captive by a society of intelligent gorilla rulers in "Planet of the Apes."
Heston is also remembered by many for his conservative activism and tenure as president of the National Rifle Association.
No cause of death has been announced, however, Heston said in 2002 that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease. In a message at the time, he told fans, "I've lived my whole life on the stage and screen before you. I've found purpose and meaning in your response. For an actor there's no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can't part with you."
With his deep voice and noble physique, Heston was for five decades the symbol of confident authority on film. He was a believeable white Moses in "The Ten Commandments" and won an incredibly riveting chariot race in "Ben-Hur."
Of more than 85 movie parts, "Ben-Hur" (1959) was a career-defining performance. It won 11 Oscars, including best actor for Heston, who played a Jewish prince seeking revenge on those who harmed his family and sent him into slavery.
Heston's physical stature was crucial to grand-scale and adventure films in the 1960s. He was Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel in "The Agony and the Ecstasy"; an 11th-century Spanish warrior in "El Cid"; British Gen. Charles "Chinese" Gordon fighting an Islamic warrior priest in "Khartoum"; and an astronaut held captive by a society of intelligent gorilla rulers in "Planet of the Apes."
Critic Pauline Kael wrote in her "Planet of the Apes" review: "With his perfect, lean-hipped, powerful body, Heston is a godlike hero; built for strength, he's an archetype of what makes Americans win. He doesn't play nice guy; he's harsh and hostile, self-centered and hot-tempered. Yet we don't hate him because he's so magnetically strong; he represents American power -- and he has the profile of an eagle."
He lost at least one important part because of his screen image. Director Steven Spielberg reportedly chose Roy Scheider over Heston in the thriller "Jaws" (1976) because Spielberg felt it would ruin the suspense to have "Moses" battle a great white shark.
Off-screen, Heston was known in Hollywood for his activism. He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild (1965 to 1971), helped create the American Film Institute and voiced support for the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1978, he received the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his service to the industry.
At first a liberal, he increasingly found himself agreeing with conservatives on matters ranging from national defense to popular culture. He said he always enjoyed adopting causes before they were popular, whether defending civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s or the gun lobby in the 1980s and 1990s. He was politically independent for decades, and even after joining the Republican Party he remained close to many Democratic friends.
Heston became a hero to conservatives when he stood up at a Time Warner shareholders meeting in 1992 to protest an Ice-T hard rock song written from the view of a cop killer. There, Heston read the song's lyrics in slow, deliberate tones, and helped bring pressure on the company to act against Ice-T, who removed the song from the album.
He would go on to use his celebrity to open doors on Capitol Hill and attract crowds to gun rallies nationwide. He defended the NRA during a period of high-profile gun attacks in schools -- he said such deadly events were "a child issue, not a gun issue." He became increasingly pointed against Democratic politicians who tried to blame the NRA's legislative influence for the killings.
At a 2000 NRA rally in Charlotte, Heston declared the presidential race a referendum on gun-control legislation and criticized Democratic candidate Al Gore. Holding aloft a Revolutionary War rifle, Heston said, "When the loss of liberty looms as it does now, this is for those who would take it -- and especially for you, Mr. Gore -- from my -- cold -- dead -- hands!"
Heston aroused great anger from the political left. Filmmaker Michael Moore's Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine" (2002) tried to show Heston as callous toward shooting victims. Moore's treatment of the visibly frail actor and what some reviewers contended were flawed facts may have backfired.
Al Gore told the New Yorker magazine, "I really appreciate what [Moore was] trying to do, but I wouldn't have thought before seeing the movie that anyone could have aroused any sympathy in me for Charlton Heston. And yet he did."
Heston stepped down from the NRA presidency in 2003. The same year, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, for his accomplishments in movies and politics.
John Charlton Carter was born in Evanston, Ill., on Oct. 4, 1924. He spent his early childhood in St. Helen, Mich., where his father was a deputy sheriff.In a memoir, he wrote that his parents' divorce when he was 9 was a wrenching surprise. He soon took his stepfather's surname, Heston, to hide what he considered the shame of the divorce.
The family moved to a poorer neighborhood in the largely affluent Chicago suburb of Wilmette, Ill. Heston spoke of himself as a shy loner -- gangly, pimply and ill-dressed -- and stuck with the nickname "Moose" because of his already-deep voice. He was in the rifle and chess clubs in high school and tried out for a play.
Onstage, Heston found a place to distinguish himself. He outgrew his physical awkwardness and became a leading man in school and community theater productions.
Heston spent two years at Northwestern University on a drama scholarship before leaving in 1943 for military duty during World War II. In 1944, he married a Northwestern classmate, actress Lydia Clarke, and they settled in New York before embarking on his Hollywood career.
Heston started in Tinseltown as a replacement for Burt Lancaster in the gambling drama "Dark City" (1950). As in "Dark City," Heston also had virile, slightly menacing roles in "Ruby Gentry," "The Naked Jungle" and "The Greatest Show in Earth," director Cecil B. DeMille's circus drama. DeMille then cast Heston in "The Ten Commandments" (1956), a hugely popular film.
To work with director William Wyler, Heston agreed to play the secondary lead opposite Gregory Peck in the western "The Big Country" (1958). Wyler was impressed with Heston's performance as the bullying ranch foreman and cast him in "Ben-Hur" after a long search for the right leading man.
"Ben-Hur" was filmed in Rome and, at $15 million, was the most expensive film then made by MGM, which was dangerously close to bankruptcy. The finished movie had a running time of 3 1/2 hours and culminated in a stunning chariot race coordinated by veteran stuntman Yakima Canutt. The movie saved MGM from bankruptcy.
Heston liked playing what he called "extraordinary men" -- President Andrew Jackson, Cardinal Richelieu, Michelangelo. He said he became disenchanted with Hollywood culture in the late 1960s that portrayed authority figures in a negative light. He began to speak out against the changing political and social climate, taking a largely conservative view.
"I find the character from the specifics about him -- the way he looks, the clothes he wears, the watch he carries," he told the Saturday Evening Post. "I resonate enormously on these external things."
Heston, who helped organize the artists' contingent to the 1963 civil rights March on Washington, later said the civil rights bills spurred by the march led to a "tangle of entitlements and reverse discrimination."
While at the NRA, he offended many when he spoke of a larger culture he said he long ceased to understand, highlighting in one 1998 speech the "fringe propaganda of the homosexual coalition, the feminists who preach that it is the divine duty for women to hate men, blacks who raise a militant fist with one hand while they seek preference with the other."
The NAACP protested the remarks, but Heston declined to apologize. He said his larger concern was "political correctness" that caused the further splintering of America. He elaborated on his views of society in his books, including "In the Arena: An Autobiography" and "To Be a Man: Letters to My Grandson."
Passing away at his Beverly Hills home, survivors include his wife and two children, director Fraser Clarke Heston and daughter Holly Ann. [Washington Post]
He lost at least one important part because of his screen image. Director Steven Spielberg reportedly chose Roy Scheider over Heston in the thriller "Jaws" (1976) because Spielberg felt it would ruin the suspense to have "Moses" battle a great white shark.
Off-screen, Heston was known in Hollywood for his activism. He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild (1965 to 1971), helped create the American Film Institute and voiced support for the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1978, he received the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his service to the industry.
At first a liberal, he increasingly found himself agreeing with conservatives on matters ranging from national defense to popular culture. He said he always enjoyed adopting causes before they were popular, whether defending civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s or the gun lobby in the 1980s and 1990s. He was politically independent for decades, and even after joining the Republican Party he remained close to many Democratic friends.
Heston became a hero to conservatives when he stood up at a Time Warner shareholders meeting in 1992 to protest an Ice-T hard rock song written from the view of a cop killer. There, Heston read the song's lyrics in slow, deliberate tones, and helped bring pressure on the company to act against Ice-T, who removed the song from the album.
He would go on to use his celebrity to open doors on Capitol Hill and attract crowds to gun rallies nationwide. He defended the NRA during a period of high-profile gun attacks in schools -- he said such deadly events were "a child issue, not a gun issue." He became increasingly pointed against Democratic politicians who tried to blame the NRA's legislative influence for the killings.
At a 2000 NRA rally in Charlotte, Heston declared the presidential race a referendum on gun-control legislation and criticized Democratic candidate Al Gore. Holding aloft a Revolutionary War rifle, Heston said, "When the loss of liberty looms as it does now, this is for those who would take it -- and especially for you, Mr. Gore -- from my -- cold -- dead -- hands!"
Heston aroused great anger from the political left. Filmmaker Michael Moore's Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine" (2002) tried to show Heston as callous toward shooting victims. Moore's treatment of the visibly frail actor and what some reviewers contended were flawed facts may have backfired.
Al Gore told the New Yorker magazine, "I really appreciate what [Moore was] trying to do, but I wouldn't have thought before seeing the movie that anyone could have aroused any sympathy in me for Charlton Heston. And yet he did."
Heston stepped down from the NRA presidency in 2003. The same year, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, for his accomplishments in movies and politics.
John Charlton Carter was born in Evanston, Ill., on Oct. 4, 1924. He spent his early childhood in St. Helen, Mich., where his father was a deputy sheriff.In a memoir, he wrote that his parents' divorce when he was 9 was a wrenching surprise. He soon took his stepfather's surname, Heston, to hide what he considered the shame of the divorce.
The family moved to a poorer neighborhood in the largely affluent Chicago suburb of Wilmette, Ill. Heston spoke of himself as a shy loner -- gangly, pimply and ill-dressed -- and stuck with the nickname "Moose" because of his already-deep voice. He was in the rifle and chess clubs in high school and tried out for a play.
Onstage, Heston found a place to distinguish himself. He outgrew his physical awkwardness and became a leading man in school and community theater productions.
Heston spent two years at Northwestern University on a drama scholarship before leaving in 1943 for military duty during World War II. In 1944, he married a Northwestern classmate, actress Lydia Clarke, and they settled in New York before embarking on his Hollywood career.
Heston started in Tinseltown as a replacement for Burt Lancaster in the gambling drama "Dark City" (1950). As in "Dark City," Heston also had virile, slightly menacing roles in "Ruby Gentry," "The Naked Jungle" and "The Greatest Show in Earth," director Cecil B. DeMille's circus drama. DeMille then cast Heston in "The Ten Commandments" (1956), a hugely popular film.
To work with director William Wyler, Heston agreed to play the secondary lead opposite Gregory Peck in the western "The Big Country" (1958). Wyler was impressed with Heston's performance as the bullying ranch foreman and cast him in "Ben-Hur" after a long search for the right leading man.
"Ben-Hur" was filmed in Rome and, at $15 million, was the most expensive film then made by MGM, which was dangerously close to bankruptcy. The finished movie had a running time of 3 1/2 hours and culminated in a stunning chariot race coordinated by veteran stuntman Yakima Canutt. The movie saved MGM from bankruptcy.
Heston liked playing what he called "extraordinary men" -- President Andrew Jackson, Cardinal Richelieu, Michelangelo. He said he became disenchanted with Hollywood culture in the late 1960s that portrayed authority figures in a negative light. He began to speak out against the changing political and social climate, taking a largely conservative view.
"I find the character from the specifics about him -- the way he looks, the clothes he wears, the watch he carries," he told the Saturday Evening Post. "I resonate enormously on these external things."
Heston, who helped organize the artists' contingent to the 1963 civil rights March on Washington, later said the civil rights bills spurred by the march led to a "tangle of entitlements and reverse discrimination."While at the NRA, he offended many when he spoke of a larger culture he said he long ceased to understand, highlighting in one 1998 speech the "fringe propaganda of the homosexual coalition, the feminists who preach that it is the divine duty for women to hate men, blacks who raise a militant fist with one hand while they seek preference with the other."
The NAACP protested the remarks, but Heston declined to apologize. He said his larger concern was "political correctness" that caused the further splintering of America. He elaborated on his views of society in his books, including "In the Arena: An Autobiography" and "To Be a Man: Letters to My Grandson."
Passing away at his Beverly Hills home, survivors include his wife and two children, director Fraser Clarke Heston and daughter Holly Ann. [Washington Post]