Charlton Heston Biography

Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter on October 4, 1923, although the year is usually given as 1924), is an American film actor noted for heroic roles, and his long involvement in political issues.
Heston was born in Evanston, Illinois to Lilla Charlton and Russell Whitford Carter. Before he was 10 his parents divorced. Some years later, his mother married Chester Heston. The new family moved to well-off Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago, Illinois, where young Heston (his new name) attended high school.
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He enrolled in the school's drama program, where he performed with such outstanding results that he earned a scholarship to Northwestern University for drama in 1942. There he played in the 16mm amateur film adaptation of Peer Gynt made by a fellow student. Several years later the same team produced Julius Caesar, in which Heston played Marc Antony.

In 1944, Heston left college and enlisted in the United States Army Air Force. He served for three years as a B-25 radio operater/gunner stationed in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands with the Eleventh Air Force, rising to the rank of Staff Sergeant.

When he returned from service in World War II he moved to New York City, where he met actress Lydia Marie Clarke, whom he married in 1944. The two lived in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, where they worked as models. Seeking a way to make it in theater, they decided to manage a playhouse in Asheville, North Carolina. In 1947, they went back to New York where Heston was offered a role in the Broadway play Antony and Cleopatra, for which he earned acclaim. He also had success in television, playing a number of roles in CBS's Studio One, one of the most popular anthology dramas of the 1950s.

Film career

The artist's rendering of Heston as Moses was bulked up to modern physique standards when the DVD of The Ten Commandments was releasedHeston felt the time had come to move to Hollywood and break into film. In 1950, he earned recognition for his appearance in his first professional movie, Dark City. His breakthrough came in 1952 with his role of a ringmaster in The Greatest Show on Earth. But the muscular, 6'3", square jawed Heston became a megastar by portraying Moses in The Ten Commandments, a part he was chosen for reportedly because director Cecil B. DeMille thought that he bore an uncanny resemblance to the statue of Moses by Michaelangelo. He has played leading roles in a number of fictional and historical epics—such as Ben-Hur, El Cid, 55 Days at Peking, and Khartoum—during his long career. He once quipped, "They seem to think I have a Medieval face!" He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his 1959 performance in the title role of Ben-Hur, one of a record-setting 11 earned by that film.

His portrayal of Buffalo Bill in Pony Express inspired the Bills, a Congolese youth cult who idolized Western movies.

Heston also starred in various science fiction films and disaster movies, some of which, like Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, Earthquake, and The Omega Man, which were hugely successful at the time of their release, and have since become cult classics.

Heston fought at times for his artistic choices. In 1958, he maneuvered Universal International into allowing Orson Welles to direct him in Touch of Evil, and in 1965 he fought the studio in support of Sam Peckinpah, when an attempt was made to interfere with his direction of Major Dundee. Heston was also president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1966 to 1971.

In 1971 he made his directorial debut with Antony and Cleopatra, an adaptation of the William Shakespeare play that he had performed during his earlier theater career.

Starting with 1973's The Three Musketeers, Heston began playing an increasing number of supporting roles and cameos. Despite this, his immense popularity has never died, and he has seen a steady stream of film and television roles ever since. Heston has an instantly recognizable voice, and is often heard as a narrator.

CHARLTON HESTON PICTURES

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CHARLTON HESTON BIOGRAPHY