Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923April 5, 2008) was an American actor and political activist. He received his first Golden Globe Award nomination for playing Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956), and won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of Ben-Hur (1959). He also starred in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Secret of the Incas (1954), Touch of Evil (1958), The Big Country (1958), El Cid (1961), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Khartoum (1966), Planet of the Apes (1968), Julius Caesar (1970), The Omega Man (1971), Antony and Cleopatra (1972), Soylent Green (1973), The Three Musketeers (1974), Airport 1975 (1974), Earthquake (1974), Crossed Swords (1978), Mother Lode (1982), and Alaska (1996). In the 1950s and early 1960s, he was one of a handful of Hollywood actors to speak openly against racism and was an active supporter of the civil rights movement. Heston left the Democratic Party in 1987 to become a Republican, founding a conservative political action committee and supporting Ronald Reagan. Heston was a five-term president of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), from 1998 to 2003. After announcing he had Alzheimer's disease in 2002, he retired from both acting and the NRA presidency. Early life John Charles Carter was born on October 4, 1923, in Wilmette, Illinois, to Lilla (née Baines; 1899–1994) and Russell Whitford Carter (1897–1966), a sawmill operator. Many sources indicate he was born in Evanston, Illinois. Heston's autobiography stated otherwise. Heston said in a 1995 interview that he was not very good at remembering addresses or his early childhood. Heston was partially of Scottish descent, including from the Clan Fraser, but the majority of his ancestry was English. His earliest colonial ancestors arrived in America from England in the 1600s. His maternal great-grandparents and namesakes were Englishman William Charlton from Sunderland and Scotswoman Mary Drysdale Charlton. They emigrated to Canada, where his grandmother, Marian Emily Charlton, was born in 1872.