Charlton Heston 10/4/24 - 4/5/08

From The Washington Post:

LOS ANGELES -- Charlton Heston, who 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 of the '50s and '60s, 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 Bill Powers said.

Powers declined to comment on the cause of death or provide further details.

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

The world is a poorer place for your passing sir.

Others will write more eloquent and moving obituaries than I ever could. So I leave you with some samples of his best work:










The poignant thing about this scene from the movie Soylent Green was that Heston wasn't acting. He knew that his old friend Edward G. Robinson was dying of terminal cancer and that this would be his last acting job (he died 9 days after the movie wrapped).