Charlton Heston

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Charlton Heston (born October 4,1924) is an American actor. He was born in Evanston, Illinois as John Charles Carter. He studied drama at Northwestern University. There he played in 1941 in Peer Gynt, a 16mm amateur production of a fellow student. In 1949 the same team produced Heston's second film, Julius Caesar.

Having returned from service in WWII, Heston and his wife Lydia Clarke went to New York, where they worked as models. They seeked the way to act in theater, and decided to manage a playhouse in Asheville, North Carolina. In 1947, Heston went back to New York and was offered a role in the Broadway play Anthony and Cleopatra, for which he earned acclaim. He had also success in television, where he acted in several productions. Heston felt then the time had come to move to Hollywood. In 1950, he earned recognition for his appearance in his first professional movie, Dark City. His breakthrough came in 1952 with his role of a circus director in The Greatest Show On Earth.

Heston became, however, a famous star for portraying Moses in The Ten Commandments, and has played during his long career lead roles in several great historic movies, like Ben-Hur, El Cid, 55 Days in Pekin, and Khartoum. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his 1959 performance in the title role of Ben-Hur. Heston has played also in various science fiction films, some of which have become classics, like Planet of the Apes.

Heston was no passive actor. He believed in what he was doing. In 1958 he maneuvered Universal International into allowing Orson Welles to direct him in Touch of Evil and in 1965 he fought the studio in support of Sam Peckinpah when an attempt was made to interfere with his direction of Major Dundee. Heston was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1966 to 1971.

Politically, Heston is a conservative and has clashed at various times in his life with Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. He is an honorary life member of the National Rifle Association, a US gun rights lobbyist group, and was its president and spokesman from 1998 until 2003. In 2001, he sought an unprecedented fourth term as president and made the famous declaration while holding an American Revolutionary War era musket over his head, "I have only five words for you: From my cold, dead hands."

He has made statements favoring the NRA position on gun rights and serves on the National Advisory Board of Accuracy in Media. In the 1960s however he was a prominent liberal — he marched with Martin Luther King in Washington, D.C. and was one of the narrators for the documentary King: A Filmed Record... Memphis to Montgomery (1970).

In 2002, Heston publicly announced that he has Alzheimer's disease. In July 2003, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Heston is married since 1944 with Lydia Clarke. The couple has two sons.

Filmography

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