One of the really big movie stars of the 50's, 60's and 70s, and this years we celebrate his birthdate 100 years ago in Wilmette, Illinois, USA. Nowdays mostly associated with epic movies of those eras.
As a youth he acted out in the Michigan forests where hardly anyone lives, screaming out monologues of the dramatic masters.
Later, in high school, he enrolled in New Trier's drama program, playing the lead role in the amateur silent 16 mm film adaptation of
Peer Gynt, from the Ibsen play, made public many years later.
In March 1944 he married Northwestern University student Lydia Marie Clarke at Grace Methodist Church in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. A marriage that would last until the day he died, nearly 64 years later.
Charlton Heston (1923-2008)Film producer Hal B. Wallis spotted him in a 1950 television production of
Wuthering Heights and offered him a contract. When his wife reminded him they had decided to pursue theater and television, he replied, "Well, maybe just for one film to see what it's like".
Official film debute in noir
Dark City 1950.
And then one thing led to another...
Mastodont
The Greatest Show on Earth 1952 by Cecil B. DeMille.
Fighting killer ants and Eleanor Parker in
The Naked Jungle 1954.
Secret of the Incas 1954, now where did that hat and leather jacket pop up again, many years later.
Tough guy meets his match in
The Private War of Major Benson 1956 a bit of a change of pace.
As Moses in
The Ten Commandments 1956.
Opposite corrupt Orson Welles in
Touch of Evil 1958.
William Wyler's
The Big Country 1958.
Winning the Oscar,
Ben-Hur 1959, actually his only ever Oscar nomination.
As
El Cid 1961 a Spanish hero epic.
Originally written for Danny Kaye, Red Skelton or Bob Hope and they all declined for different reasons, who do you call?
The Pigeon That Took Rome 1962, critics was actually positive to see a lighter side of Heston, bit wished the movie was better.
Another big movie,
55 Days at Peking 1963.
Nearly a cameo as John the Babtist in George Stevens' ambitious
The Greatest Story Ever Told 1965.
As Michelangelo in
The Agony and the Ecstasy 1965.
Sam Peckinpah's
Major Dundee 1965
Medieval serious knight tale,
The War Lord 1965.
General Gordon in
Khartoum 1966.
Called an intelligent Western
Will Penny 1968.
"Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"
Planet of the Apes 1968.
Making two Shakespeare movies as Mark Antony in
Julius Caesar 1970 and
Antony and Cleopatra 1972, he could afford it now and afford the losses, though big hits in Japan.
The last man? in
The Omega Man 1971
The last food? with Edward G Robinson in
Soylent Green 1973.
As Cardinal Richelieu in Richard Lester's
The Three Musketeers 1973 and
The Four Musketeers 1974.
Saving Ava Gardner and Los Angeles in
Earthquake 1974 and it was all in Sensurround Sound, a gimmick that didn't last forever.
Forgetting about aerodynamics, saving a Jumbo Jet in
Airport 1975 1974.
He would continue to act in movies in all kind of genres until 2003 and act on television until 2002, even at times sending up his own movie persona.
First published in 1998. There are at least four others approved biographies.
He acted in nearly 130 movies and television productions between 1950 and 2003, not counting amateur footage.
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