UNITED STATES:Heston was known for rugged, heroic roles and for backing conservative causes, writes MICHAEL DWYER, Film Correspondent.
CHARLTON HESTON, who died at his Beverly Hills home in Los Angeles on Saturday night, was an Oscar-winning actor who specialised in rugged, heroic roles and worked tirelessly for over 60 years.
The cause of death was not given, but in 2002 Heston announced that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease. His wife Lydia, whom he married in 1944, was with him when he died. He was 84.
Born John Carter in Evanston, Illinois, Heston made his acting debut while a university student in 1942, playing the title role of Peer Gyntin an amateur film, and by the end of the decade he had starred in TV productions of several classic plays and novels.
Producer Hal B Wallis saw Heston as Heathcliffe in a TV treatment of Wuthering Heightsand gave him his first professional film role, in the 1950 thriller, Dark City.
Producer-director Cecil B DeMille was impressed by Heston's performance, and by his strong, distinctive voice, and gave him the leading role as the circus manager in The Greatest Show on Earth, which won the 1952 Oscar for best picture. DeMille cast him as Moses in the lavish 1956 Biblical epic, The Ten Commandments.
Heston worked extensively throughout the 1950s, most impressively as the ranch foreman in William Wyler's western The Big Countryand as a Mexican narcotics detective in Orson Welles's film noir Touch of Evil.
Heston's status as a box-office attraction soared when Wyler cast him in the title role of another religious epic, Ben-Hur(1959), which featured Heston and Belfast native Stephen Boyd as rivals in the celebrated chariot race.
The film won an unprecedented 11 Oscars, a record equalled twice but never surpassed, and Heston received the Oscar for best actor.
His prolific output during the 1960s was dominated by period pictures, prompting Heston to remark, "I have a face that belongs in another century."
The least memorable of these roles was playing John the Baptist in The Greatest Story Ever Told, but Heston proved more impressive in El Cid, 55 Days at Peking, The Agony and the Ecstasy(as Michelangelo) and Khartoum(as General Gordon), and in a couple of underrated westerns, Major Dundeeand Will Penny.
Heston made the first of several ventures into science-fiction when he applied his muscular physical presence in Planet of the Apes(1968), an unexpected big hit that spawned sequels, a TV series and a remake. And when "disaster movies" became all the rage in the mid-1970s, it seemed entirely natural that Heston would star in some ( Earthquake, Airport 1975, Two-Minute Warning).
An actor who never rested on his laurels, Heston continued to work at a remarkable rate, often content to play supporting parts and cameo roles, until shortly before his 80th birthday, when he made his final film appearance as Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele in My Father, Rua Alguem 5555.
Never regarded as the most discriminating or selective of actors, Heston seemed to be willing to accept what was on offer in the later decades of his long career.
He ventured into directing films three times: with a leaden treatment of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra(1972), in which he doubled as the male lead; the wilderness drama, Mother Lode(1982), written and produced by his son, Fraser; and a 1988 TV version of A Man for All Seasons, in which he played Sir Thomas More.
Many were surprised when Heston cast Vanessa Redgrave as Lady Alice More in that production, given that they were polar opposites in their highly publicised political stances.
Heston was once known for his liberal views, as one of the earliest actors to participate in the civil rights movement and as a Democrat who campaigned for Adlai Stevenson in 1956 and John F Kennedy in 1960.
By the 1980s he had turned to conservative causes, supporting fellow actor Ronald Reagan's political ambitions.
As a Time-Warner stockholder, Heston castigated the company for profiting from rapper Ice-T's album track, Cop Killer.
And he championed the US gun laws, becoming a high-profile president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in 1998, and posing for advertisements in which he held a rifle.
He clashed on the issue with President Clinton, to whom he delivered the jibe: "America does not trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns."
One of Heston's last screen appearances was involuntary, when director Michael Moore, posing as a fellow NRA member, door-stepped him for his documentary, Bowling for Columbine(2002).
Moore challenged him for appearing at an NRA rally in Denver 10 days after the Columbine high school massacre nearby. With a Ben-Hurposter behind him, Heston, looking frail, responded with an angry silence.
When Heston stepped down as NRA president in April 2003, he told the members that his five-year tenure has been "quite a ride" and that he "loved every minute of it". Later that same year Heston was awarded the highest US civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. "The largeness of character that comes across the screen has also been seen throughout his life," President Bush stated.