Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston, 1924 - 2008.
Charlton Heston, who appeared in some 100 films in his 60-year acting career but who is remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo, died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 83....
Every actor dreams of a breakthrough role, the part that stamps him in the public memory, and Mr Heston's life changed forever when he caught the eye of the director Cecil B De Mille. De Mille, who was planning his next biblical spectacular, The Ten Commandments, looked at the young, physically imposing Mr Heston and saw his Moses.
Robert Berkvist, New York Times.
Heston won the Academy Award for best actor in another religious blockbuster in 1959's Ben-Hur, racing four white horses at top speed in one of the cinema's legendary action sequences: the 15-minute chariot race in which his character, a proud and noble Jew, competes against his childhood Roman friend....
Like the chariot race and the bearded prophet Moses, Heston will be best remembered for several indelible cinematic moments: playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with Orson Welles in the oil fields in Touch of Evil, his rant at the end of Planet of the Apes when he sees the destruction of the Statue of Liberty, his discovery that "Soylent Green is people!" in the sci-fi hit Soylent Green and the dead Spanish hero on his steed in El Cid.
Robert W Welkos and Susan King, Los Angeles Times.