Best Known As: Moses in the 1956 film The Ten Commandments
Name at birth: John Charles Carter
Charlton Heston's rugged appearances in epics like The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben-Hur (1959) made him one of the biggest movie stars of the 1950s. The biblical story The Ten Commandments starred Heston as a powerful Moses, and the slaves-and-gladiators epic Ben-Hur won Heston an Oscar as best actor. Heston remained a box-office draw in adventures and westerns through the 1960s and '70s, as he starred in films like the sci-fi hit Planet of the Apes (1968, with Roddy McDowall), Will Penny (1968) and the WWII naval spectacular Midway (1976, with Henry Fonda). In later years Heston applied his rugged good looks and dignified manner to conservative political causes; most notably, he became president of the National Rifle Association. Heston announced in August of 2002 that he had early symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease. He finished his NRA term in April of 2003, and made no further public appearances until his death in 2008. He wrote the memoirs The Actor's Life (1978) and In the Arena (1995).
Heston had a cameo role in Tim Burton's 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes... Heston played the Spanish historical hero El Cid in the hit 1961 film El Cid... One of Heston's lines from Planet of the Apes has become a pop culture favorite: "Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"
Career Highlights: Planet of the Apes, Will Penny, The Agony and the Ecstasy
First Major Screen Credit: Dark City (1950)
Biography
Steely jawed, hard bodied, terse in speech, Charlton Heston is an American man's man, an epic unto himself. While he has played modern men, he is at his best when portraying larger-than-life figures from world history, preferably with his shirt off. He was born John Charleton Carter on October 4, 1924 and originally trained in the classics in Northwestern University's drama program, gaining early experience playing the lead in a 1941 filmed school production of Peer Gynt. He also performed on the radio, and then went on to serve in the Air Force for three years during WWII. Afterwards, he went to work as a model in New York, where he met his wife, fellow model Lydia Clarke, to whom he is still happily married. Later the two operated a theater in Asheville, North Carolina where Heston honed his acting skills. He made his Broadway debut in Katharine Cornell's 1947 production of Anthony and Cleopatra and subsequently went on to be a staple of the highly-regarded New York-based Studio One live television anthology where he played such classic characters as Heathcliff, Julius Caesar and Petruchio. The show made Heston a star.
He made his Hollywood film debut in William Dieterle's film noir Dark City playing opposite Lizabeth Scott. Even though she was more established in Hollywood, it was Heston who received top billing. He went on to appear as a white man raised in Indian culture in The Savage (1952) and then as a snob who snubs a country girl in King Vidor's Ruby Gentry (1952). His big break came when Cecil B. DeMille cast him as the bitter circus manager Brad Braden in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952).
In subsequent films, Heston began developing his persona of an unflinching hero with a piercing blue-eyed stare and unbending, self-righteous Middle American ethics. Heston's heroes could be violent and cruel, but only when absolutely necessary. He began a long stint of playing historical characters with his portrayal of Buffalo Bill in Pony Express and then Andrew Jackson in The President's Lady (both 1953). Heston's star burned at its brightest when DeMille cast him as the stern Moses in the lavish The Ten Commandments (1956). From there, Heston went on to headline numerous spectaculars which provided him the opportunity to play every one from John the Baptist to Michelangelo to El Cid to General "Chinese" Gordon. In 1959, Heston won an Academy Award for the title role in William Wyler's Ben Hur. By the mid-1960s, the reign of the epic film passed and Heston began appearing in westerns (Will Penny) and epic war dramas (Midway). He also did sci-fi films, the most famous of which were the campy satire Planet of the Apes (1968), its sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) and the cult favorite Soylent Green (1973). The '70s brought Heston into a new kind of epic, the disaster film, and he appeared in three, notably Airport 1975. From the late '80s though the '90s, Heston has returned to television, appearing in series, miniseries and made-for TV movies. He also appeared in such films as Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996) and 1998's Armageddon (in which he was spared extensive humiliation by only having to act as the film's narrator).
Outside of his filmwork, Heston served six terms as the president of the Screen Actors Guild and also chaired the American Film Institute. Active in such charities as The Will Rogers Institute, he was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1977 Oscar ceremony. Known as a conservative Republican and proud member of the National Rifle Association, Heston worked closely with his long-time colleague and friend President Ronald Reagan as the leader of the president's task force on arts and the humanities. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
(born Oct. 4, 1924, Evanston, Ill., U.S.) U.S. actor. He made his Broadway debut in Antony and Cleopatra (1947) and his film debut in Dark City (1950). He became a star in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and was a muscular and dignified stalwart in epic films such as The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur (1959, Academy Award), and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). He also starred in Touch of Evil (1958), Planet of the Apes (1968), and The Three Musketeers (1973) and directed and acted in Antony and Cleopatra (1972) and Mother Lode (1982). He was president of the Screen Actors Guild (1966 – 71) and the National Rifle Association (1998 – 2003).
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Heston was born John Charles Carter in Evanston, Illinois, the son of Lilla (née Charlton) and Russell Whitford Carter, a mill
operator.[3] Heston said he was part Native American and a
"blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux." [4] When he
was ten, his parents divorced. Shortly thereafter, his mother married Chester Heston. The new family moved to well-off
Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago.
Heston (his new surname) attended New Trier High School.
He enrolled in the school's drama program, earning a drama scholarship to Northwestern University from the Winnetka Community Theatre in which he was also active. While
in high school, he played in the silent 16 mm amateur film adaptation of Peer Gynt made
by David Bradley. Several years later the same team produced the first sound version of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, in
which Heston played Mark Antony.
While in the service, he married Northwestern student Lydia Marie Clarke in 1944. After the war, the two lived in
Hell's Kitchen, New York City, where they worked as models. They have a son, Fraser Clarke Heston and an
adopted daughter, Holly Ann Heston.
He played leading roles in a number of fictional and historical epics— Ben-Hur, El Cid, 55 Days at Peking, The Agony and the
Ecstasy (as Michelangelo), and Khartoum. After Burt Lancaster turned down the role of Ben-Hur, Heston accepted the role, going on to win the
Academy Award for Best Actor, one of eleven Oscars the film earned. (In
1995, Heston denied a claim by Ben-Hur screenwriter Gore
Vidal that there is a gay subtext to the film. Vidal says he wrote the script with such an implication, but never
mentioned the subtext to Heston [though he did so to
