Hollywood legend Charlton Heston dead at 84 – InvisibleLA
LOS ANGELES – Charles Heston movie star and political activist died at Beverly Hills home at the age of 84 Saturday. Charlton Heston won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing “Ben-Hur” and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in film epics.
Charlton Heston was president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003. He delivered an historic address concerning 2nd Amendment Rights to Keep and Bear Arms saying “I have only five words for you: From my cold, dead hands.” Heston added: “You are of the same lineage as the farmers who stood at Concord Bridge” at the start of the American Revolution.
Heston starred in classic science fiction films and disaster films between 1968 and 1975 including Planet of the Apes (1968), Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Soylent Green (1971), The Omega Man (1973), Earthquake (1974), and Airport (1975).
Charles Heston starred in sucessful western, action and historical films in the 1950s and 1960s.
Heston made a cameo appearance in the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes. In the film, he plays a chimp who introduces arms to his species by giving a pistol to his son, General Thade.
His last film role was an uncredited appearance as the voice of nobleman in Shrek 2 (2004) .
In 1944, enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. He served for two years as a B-25 radio operator/gunner stationed in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands with the Eleventh Air Force as a Staff Sergeant.

