Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008) was an American actor and political activist. He gained stardom for his leading man roles in numerous Hollywood films including biblical epics, historical drama films, science-fiction films, and action films. He won an Academy Award, a David di Donatello Award, a Laurel Award, a Photoplay Award, a Golden Globe Award (plus three additional nominations), as well as nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards. He received numerous honorary accolades including a Hollywood Walk of Fame Star in 1960, the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1967, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1971, an honorary Saturn Award in 1975, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Academy Award in 1978, the ShoWest Convention Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003.

Heston gained stardom for his leading roles as Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956) and as the title role of Ben-Hur (1959), the latter of which earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor. His other notable credits include The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Secret of the Incas (1954), Touch of Evil (1958), The Big Country (1958), El Cid (1961), 55 Days at Peking (1963), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Khartoum (1966), Planet of the Apes (1968), Julius Caesar (1970), The Omega Man (1971), Antony and Cleopatra (1972), Soylent Green (1973), The Three Musketeers (1974), Airport 1975 (1974), Earthquake (1974), and Crossed Swords (1978). He later acted in Mother Lode (1982), Tombstone (1993), True Lies (1994), Alaska (1996), and Hamlet (1996).

In the 1950s and early 1960s, he was one of a handful of Hollywood actors who openly denounced racism and he was also an active supporter of the civil rights movement. In 1987, Heston left the Democratic Party and became a Republican, founding a conservative political action committee and supporting Ronald Reagan. Heston was a five-term president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), from 1998 to 2003. After announcing that he had Alzheimer's disease in 2002, he retired from acting and the NRA presidency.