Film legend Charlton Heston dead at 84

Charlton Heston has died. He was 84. The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman said. The spokesman declined to comment on the cause of death or provide further details.


Heston won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing "Ben-Hur" and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in movie epics.

In 2002 Heston revealed that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease, saying, "I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure."

Heston served as president of the Screen Actors Guild and chairman of the American Film Institute and marched in the civil rights movement of the 1950s.
In June 1998, Heston was elected president of the National Rifle Association.
Heston stepped down as NRA president in April 2003.
Later that year, Heston was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Heston was born in a Chicago suburb on Oct. 4, 1923, as Charles Carter. His parents moved to St. Helen, Mich., where his father, Russell Carter, operated a lumber mill.

Charles's parents divorced, and his mother married Chester Heston, a factory plant superintendent in Wilmette, Ill.,where Heston thrived in the theater department at the local high school.He won an acting scholarship to Northwestern University in 1941.
In 1943, he enlisted in the Army Air Force and served as a radio-gunner in the Aleutians. In 1944 he married another Northwestern drama student, Lydia Clarke.They had been married 64 years when he died. After his army discharge in 1947, they moved to New York to seek acting jobs.

Heston wrote several books: "The Actor's Life: Journals 1956-1976," published in 1978; "Beijing Diary: 1990," concerning his direction of the play "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" in Chinese; "In the Arena: An Autobiography," 1995; and "Charlton Heston's Hollywood: 50 Years of American Filmmaking," 1998.