Saturday
Apr052008
Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 11:59PM Charlton Heston Dead at 83
The legendary Charlton Heston has passed away at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 83.
The actor and former Screen Actors Guild president became as well known later in life as a political firebrand as the president of the National Rifle Association, and for the generation that knows him primarily for his famous quote, "From my cold, dead hands," you owe it to yourself to go back and discover one of Hollywood's most unique leading men.
Heston's career spanned over 50 years, and while casual moviegoers would likely list The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and Planet of the Apes as Heston's high watermarks, he often took pretty big risks in an era that leading man of his standing seldom did so. He was fantastic as the border cop in Orson Welles' 1958 film noir classic, Touch of Evil, which at the time would be akin to Will Smith popping up in a crime movie with a $100,000 budget.
Heston was an enormous star at this point in his career, but his belief in the director and the project led him to Touch of Evil, which failed to find an audience at the time, although history has certainly proven him right; the film was recently ranked 68th on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest films ever made.
In the early 1970s, Heston famously appeared in a pair of peculiar sci-fi gems, Soylent Green and Omega Man. Again, Heston bucked conventional wisdom to take roles in films that were ahead of their time and out of touch with the mainstream.
Charlton Heston won the only Academy Award for which he was nominated, for the title role in Ben-Hur, but as his appearance as the Player King in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet proved nearly 40 years later, Heston remained a capable and powerful performer well beyond when the industry relegated him to thankless roles in small, underperforming films.
Though Heston has often been portrayed as a bully in politically correct circles because of his tenure as NRA president, he was a champion of civil rights in the 1960s, marching on Washington with Martin Luther King, and was even approached for a Senate run in California in 1969...by the Democratic Party.
The actor and former Screen Actors Guild president became as well known later in life as a political firebrand as the president of the National Rifle Association, and for the generation that knows him primarily for his famous quote, "From my cold, dead hands," you owe it to yourself to go back and discover one of Hollywood's most unique leading men.
Heston's career spanned over 50 years, and while casual moviegoers would likely list The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and Planet of the Apes as Heston's high watermarks, he often took pretty big risks in an era that leading man of his standing seldom did so. He was fantastic as the border cop in Orson Welles' 1958 film noir classic, Touch of Evil, which at the time would be akin to Will Smith popping up in a crime movie with a $100,000 budget.
Heston was an enormous star at this point in his career, but his belief in the director and the project led him to Touch of Evil, which failed to find an audience at the time, although history has certainly proven him right; the film was recently ranked 68th on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest films ever made.
In the early 1970s, Heston famously appeared in a pair of peculiar sci-fi gems, Soylent Green and Omega Man. Again, Heston bucked conventional wisdom to take roles in films that were ahead of their time and out of touch with the mainstream.
Charlton Heston won the only Academy Award for which he was nominated, for the title role in Ben-Hur, but as his appearance as the Player King in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet proved nearly 40 years later, Heston remained a capable and powerful performer well beyond when the industry relegated him to thankless roles in small, underperforming films.
Though Heston has often been portrayed as a bully in politically correct circles because of his tenure as NRA president, he was a champion of civil rights in the 1960s, marching on Washington with Martin Luther King, and was even approached for a Senate run in California in 1969...by the Democratic Party.
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