Charlton Heston, the winner of the 1959 best actor Oscar as chariot-racing Ben-Hur, died Saturday night at his Beverly Hills, California home.
According to the Internet Movie Database, Heston was born on October 4, 1924, making him 83. However, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that he was 84.
Heston, who starred as Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 Biblical extravaganza The Ten Commandments, died with his wife Lydia at his side, spokesman Bill Powers said.
Frequently portraying heroic figures in 1950s and 1960s movie epics, he reprised his Academy Award-winning role in the 2002 Goodtime Entertainment animated video Ben-Hur, voicing the narrator as well.
With a booming baritone voice, he narrated several animated productions, such as the 1997 Disney feature film Hercules.
And belying his arch-conservative image, he narrated the English dub of the 1967 Soviet-American animated feature film Maugli, variously known in English as The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling's the Jungle Book and Adventures of Mowgli.
His first animation project was as narrator of Burt Strattford Productions' 1992 half-hour special Noel, which aired on NBC. He guested as himself in Dam, a 1997 episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
Using archived audio footage, Heston was caricatured in Robert Smigel's 1999 Fun With Real Audio episode Gun Control, speaking against gun control in the Senate.
In live action, he portrayed Michelangelo and El Cid.
In 2002, Heston disclosed that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease: "I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure."
The muscular Heston often said: "I have a face that belongs in another century." In a 1965 interview, he reflected: "I don't seem to fit really into the 20th century. Pretty soon, though, I've got to get a part where I wear pants with pleats and pockets."
"He was the screen hero of the 1950s and 1960s, a proven stayer in epics, and a pleasing combination of piercing blue eyes and tanned beefcake," David Thomson wrote in his book The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.
Heston worked with a wide array of famous directors: DeMille in The Greatest Show on Earth and The Ten Commandments, Orson Welles in Touch of Evil, Sam Peckinpah in Major Dundee, William Wyler in The Big Country and Ben-Hur, George Stevens in The Greatest Story Ever Told, Franklin Schaffner in The War Lord and Planet of the Apes, and Anthony Mann in El Cid.
Born John Charles Carter in Evanston, Illinois, Heston became a best-selling author. He also became a controversial gun advocate, becoming president of the National Rifle Association in 1998 and serving until 2003.
Infuriating gun control supporters, Heston imitated Moses' parting of the Red Sea. Instead raising a rod over his head, he lifted a flintlock and dared his enemies to pry it "from my cold, dead hands."
Heston's Oscar-winning role in Ben-Hur had him racing four white horses at top speed in a 15-minute chariot race in which his character, a noble, heroic Jew, competes against his childhood Roman friend, played by Stephen Boyd.
His landmark scenes in movies included his cat-and-mouse game with Welles in the oil fields in Touch of Evil, his discovery that "Soylent Green is people!", the dead Spanish hero on his horse in El Cid, and tortured discovery, at the end of 1968's Planet of the Apes, of a half-buried Statue of Liberty.
"All this wouldn't be so forceful or so funny if it weren't for the use of Charlton Heston in the role," New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael wrote about Planet of the Apes. "With his perfect, lean-hipped, powerful body, Heston is a godlike hero; built for strength, he is an archetype of what makes Americans win. He represents American power -- and he has the profile of an eagle."
Heston liked to say that he had performed Shakespeare on film more than any other actor. Once, he complained that modern movie stars don't try to improve their acting skills by trying Shakespeare.
He was a prominent civil rights activist in the 1950s. President of the Screen Actors Guild for six terms, he received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian award.
In August 2002, Heston made a dramatic videotaped address announcing his illness. A days later, he sat down in his Coldwater Canyon home and reflected on his uncertain future.
"The world is a tough place," he said with a chuckle. "You're never going to get out of it alive."
Charlton Heston married Lydia Marie Clarke in July 1944. They had two children: Fraser Clarke Heston, a TV producer-director, and Holly Heston Rochell. Billed as Fraser Heston, their son appeared in The Ten Commandments as the infant Moses. He is also survived by two grandchildren.
A private memorial service is planned. However, no further details were provided.
