Legendary Hollywood actor Charlton Heston died on Saturday, April 5 at his home in Beverly Hills, California with Lydia, his wife of 64 years, by his side. He was 84 years old...Even though Heston had been in ill heath for the last several years battling Alzheimer's disease the exact cause of death is not yet known...
So many films come to mind when I think of Mr. Heston's 62 years as an actor...playing Anthony in 1950's Julius Caesar started him on a path of playing in larger then life epics--like the great flick Ben-Hur for which he won a Best Actor Oscar in 1960. El Cid came a couple of years later. My Mom and Dad were always partial to his turn as Moses in The Ten Commandments from Cecil B. DeMille from 1956...and Touch of Evil as Ramon Vargas for Orson Welles in '1958
Heston was not afraid to take chances with his career and image as a leading man...He appeared with great success in sci-fi classics like The Omega Man playing Robert Neville-Thus paving the way for Will Smith to do same last year in the remake I Am Legend. And then there's the memorable Soylent Green...But for me (and many others) its 1968's Planet of the Apes and his turn as George Taylor that remains a pinnacle of the genre..He returned for the sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes and the 2001 remake for a cameo...
The disaster epics Airport 1975 and Earthquake saw him face danger with all star casts; He lent his vocal talents for Armageddon and the animated Hercules.
Roles in more faves Any Given Sunday and the excellent western Tombstone...the actioner True Lies In the Mouth of Madness for John Carpenter and even in the comedy Wayne's World 2 as "A Good Actor"....
His most controversial role though came off screen as Chairman and Spokesperson for the National Rifle Association from 1998 until he resigned in 2003....
Read the Variety obituary for more...
No comments:
Post a Comment