Academy Award winning actor Charlton Heston dies at 84.  The film star
found fame as Moses in "The Ten Commandments" and won an Oscar for
playing a gladiator in "Ben-Hur."

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES  (REUTERS)

Academy Award-winning actor Charlton Heston died on Saturday night
at the age of 84, his family said.  Heston, a former president of the
influential National Rifle Association lobbying group, died at his home in
Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, the family said in a
statement.
     The actor, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar for the title role in
"Ben Hur" in which he did many of his own chariot race stunts, had
announced in 2002 that he was suffering from symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

     Other famous film roles for Heston including biblical blockbuster
"The Ten Commandments," in which he played Moses, and sci-fi
favourite, "Planet of the Apes."  Heston also directed films,
including a 1972 re-telling of Shakespeare's "Anthony and
Cleopatra".
     Heston was also well known for his politically conservative lifestyle,
and served as leader of the National Rifle Association, the gun-rights lobby
group, from 1998 to 2003.  Another famous film moment for the actor came when
Michael Moore famously interviewed him for his 2002 documentary on gun rights
"Bowling for Columbine," in which Moore rang the doorbell of
Heston's Beverly Hills mansion and requested a word. 
     Born John Charlton Carter (Heston was his stepfather's name) on
October 4, 1923, in Evanston, Illinois, he made his theatrical debut as Santa
Claus in a school play at age 5 and studied acting at Northwestern University.
After a World War Two stint as a gunner in the Army Air Corps, Heston headed
to Broadway, and in 1944, he married fellow Northwestern drama student Lydia
Clarke.  Their marriage lasted 64 years until his death.  He had two children
and three grandchildren.
     In the 1960s Heston was involved in the civil rights movement. He
served six terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild and in 1987, 16 years
after leaving the SAG job, locked horns with SAG President Ed Asner over the
guild's left-leaning stance.
     He once campaigned for Democrats, Adlai Stevenson against Dwight
Eisenhower and John Kennedy against Richard Nixon. But he switched to
Republican Nixon in 1972 and backed old friend Ronald Reagan in the ex-actor's
quest for the presidency. Thereafter, he was identified with conservative
politics and causes.