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04/07/2008: "RIP Charlton Heston"
The term "larger than life" gets tossed around pretty easily these days, but I challenge you to find anyone who fit that description better than actor Charlton Heston, who died Saturday at the age of 84. From a series of towering screen roles to a politically active personal life (he both walked with Martin Luther King Jr. and served as the president of the National Rifle Association), Heston always stood out. No actor in the last half-century has had more memorable screen lines than did he:
Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!
You've gotta tell them! Soylent Green is people!
Let my people go
From the chariot race in "Ben Hur" to flying a fighter in "Midway" to crawling through the rubble in "Earthquake", you never lost sight of the fact it was Heston, yet that never got in the way. He played the strong leader so well, we just came to accept that was what a leader looked like.
One fact often overshadowed was that he had been married to his wife Lydia for an amazing 64 years at the time of his death.
Stars come and go, but we won't soon see another like Charlton Heston.
