One of Hollywood's most iconic stars, Charlton Heston, has died at age 84. His death was not unexpected. Heston had been suffering from the ravages of advanced Alzheimer's Disease since 2002, when he publicly bade his fans farewell in a heartwrenching address in which he candidly acknowledged the painful road that lay before him. Heston was a star since his feature film debut in Dark City in 1950. Unlike many actors, he didn't have work his way to the top of the food chain. Heston generally enjoyed prominent or top billing on all of his films. With his rugged, chiseled good looks, he evoked a time period in which leading men were generally recognized for their macho characteristics. Despite being a superstar in an industry known for short-term relationships, Heston remained devoted to his wife Lydia, to whom he was married for 64 years. She survives him, as does their two children Fraser and Holly.
Heston was a complex and often controversial man. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was among the vanguard of prominent actors who actively supported the American civil rights movement. Heston, along with Marlon Brando, James Garner and Burt Lancaster, even appeared at the side of Martin Luther King Jr. during his famous visit to Washington, D.C in 1963, where he delivered his legendary "I have a dream" speech. In his later years, his views became far more conservative even as the film industry swung to the political left. He served as President of Screen Actors Guild and chairman of The American Film Institute in its early days. However, it was his late-in-life election as president of The National Rifle Association that placed him squarely in the mainstream media at a time when he had largely retired from acting. Heston felt that increasingly restrictive gun control laws violated the U.S. Constitution. As president of the NRA, his iconic image helped turn around a membership decline that followed in the wakes of high profile mass murders. Heston made compelling arguments for his position that career criminals never get guns through the legal system and that gun control measures only penalize law-abiding citizens. However, critics cited that his argument did not address the many instances in which non-criminals used easily-available guns to wreak havoc after suffering a mental breakdown. Heston's position with the NRA drew the ire of the political left as no right winger had since John Wayne, but it also increased his popularity throughout the ranks of conservatives who treasured the image of him at an NRA convention with a musket held above his head as he shouted the organization's motto, "From my cold, dead hands..."
Heston's early films were a mixed bag. Cecil B. DeMille cast him as one of the leads in his 1952 Oscar winning circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth, but over the next few years, his movies tended to be undistinguished big studio pot-boilers, though there was the occasional gem such as The Naked Jungle which memorably cast him as an arrogant plantation owner trying to ward off an army of killer ants. The biggest break of his career came when DeMille cast him as Moses in his 1956 remake of The Ten Commandments. The film looks laughably bad by contemporary standards, but at the time it was the biggest money maker Hollywood had ever seen and Heston became synonymous with playing historical, larger-than-life figures. In 1959, he had his greatest commercial success, winning the Best Actor Oscar in MGM's remake of Ben-Hur. For years, the film would reign as the highest grossing motion picture of all time and it's eleven Oscar wins would remain unmatched until Titanic in 1997. During the 1960s, Heston's star status was assured but his eclectic mix of films made for uneven box-office. He often took chances other leading men would not, occasionally playing flawed, somewhat unsympathetic characters. He starred in some high profile, troubled productions such as 55 Days at Peking, The Agony and the Ecstasy,The Greatest Story Ever Told (a supporting role as John, the Baptist) and Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee. Ironically, each of these films is far better regarded today than they were at the time, when they underperformed at the box-office. Another commercial failure was the 1966 epic Khartoum in which Heston arguably gave the greatest performance of his career as the doomed General Gordon. One of Heston's favorite films was director Tom Gries' Will Penny in which he gave a remarkable, low-key performance as an aging cowboy. The somber subject matter did not make it a commercial success, however. Yet, there were huge hits during this period as well, including the 1961 film El Cid and the 1968 sci-fi classic Planet of the Apes which launched a successful series. Ironically, the legendary makeup effects employed on the film largely overshadowed the fact that Heston gave a brilliant performance as a conceited, cynical and not-very-likeable astronaut stranded on the bizarre planet run by civilized simians.
From a commerical standpoint, the 1970s were Heston's strongest years in terms of box-office. He starred in the big screen version of Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, retitled The Omega Man. The last-man-on-earth saga proved to be a substantial hit and has a loyal following even today. Another sci-fi thriller, Soylent Green was set in the future and found Heston uncovering a horrendous secret about the dramatically overpopulated world in which he barely eeks out a daily existence. That film, too, proved to a hit at a time when MGM was suffering financially. Heston also proved to be a popular figure in commerical potboilers like Skyjacked, Airport 75 and the critically-reviled but highly successful disaster movie Earthquake. In 1976, he received top billing among an all-star cast in Universal's cheapo WWII "epic" Midway that non-convincingly used real battle footage for the action scenes. Nevertheless, Heston's name above the title and a creative marketing campaign made the film a blockbuster. Heston also played the occasional villain, as in his acclaimed performance as Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers.
By the 1980s, however, Heston's era as a box-office champion had ended and he concentrated on supporting roles and starring in TV movies. He also starred in the TV soap opera The Colbys as well as the hit mini-series Chiefs. In later years, he had prominent cameos in hits like Tombstone and Tim Burton's critically-panned, but commercially successful remake of Planet of the Apes (this time playing an ape.) He even spoofed his own image as a gun-lover in Warren Beatty's much-delayed flop Town and Country. However, Heston publicly acknowledged that as he became more outspoken about his conservative political views, he would be ostracized from the film industry which is now tilts almost entirely to the left. Still, even his political opponents acknowledged the fact that he had a permanent place as one of the most iconic figures in movie history. As his health declined, Heston gave a final interview to ABC News in which he candidly spoke about the long, torturous road ahead as he battled Alzheimers Disease. He expressed regret and sorrow for the pain the struggle would inevitably bring to his wife and family and in a poignant moment, looked over personal mementos including the staff he used as Moses, saying that in a few years time, he would not even recognize its signficance. Few public figures ever faced their own mortality with more courage or dignity. One of his last public appearances was at The White House in 2003 where a frail Heston received The Medal of Freedom from President Bush. Perhaps his most appropriate epitaph was spoken by his publicist Michael Levine, who said "If Hollywood had a Mt. Rushmore, Heston's face would be on it. He was a heroic figure that I don't think exists to the same
degree in Hollywood today." - Lee Pfeiffer
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