Charlton Heston Dead at 84

Screen Legend Defended the Constitution

The National Rifle Association has lost one of its staunchest supporters with the death of movie icon Charlton Heston. Heston was 84 when he died at his home Saturday night. While having Heston until the last few months had been involved in the battle to preserve the 2^nd Amendment, and served as president of the NRA fighting for citizen rights to bear arms.

Heston is a movie legend, having portrayed presidents, saints, holy men and geniuses. One of the all-time most-memorable movie scenes features Evanston, Illinois-born Heston in his role as Moses in the "The Ten Commandments," raising his arms and parting the Red Sea to escape the avenging troops of Pharaoh Ramses.

Heston had an imposing screen presence, with his chiseled jaw good looks and booming baritone voice. He made his first big screen appearance in 1941, but it was more than a decade later that he became a box office star with the movie "The Greatest Show on Earth." Heston was ticket selling gold throughout the 1950s, with "Ben-Hur" (1959) landing him the Oscar for Best Actor - and again, his portrayal of an historical figure landed him an incredibly memorable scene, driving a chariot against seemingly insurmountable odds.

In the early '60s, Heston continued playing 'bigger than life' historic figures, most notably Michelangelo in "The Sound and the Fury."

And then - his dip into science fiction, first in the classic cautionary tale "Planet of the Apes" as a space traveler marooned on a strange planet in which apes, not men, rose to be the dominant species. Again, Heston appears in one of filmdoms most memorable scenes, the ending that shocked audiences into silence in 1968.

Heston made more trips into science fiction before unofficially retiring from acting, in "Soylent Green" and "The Omega Man" both having scenes in which Heston was set up by directors and film writers to appear in scenes that are forever burned into the minds of anyone having seen these films.