Charlton Heston Dead at 84
Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing “Ben-Hur” and portrayed Moses, El Cid, and other heroic figures in movie epics of the ’50s and ’60s, has died. He was 84. In recent years he became a figure of unregenerate (many would say piggish) conservatism, becoming the poster grandpa for the NRA and ignorantly questioning whether Michelangelo, whom he famously played in a movie, was homosexual.
Heston spokesman Bill Powers says the actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia was at his side.
Heston revealed in 2002 that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s disease, saying, “I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure.”
With his large, muscular build, well-boned face and sonorous voice, Heston proved the ideal star during the period when Hollywood was filling movie screens with panoramas depicting the religious and historical past. “I have a face that belongs in another century,” he often remarked.
