Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter), who starred in The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Soylent Green, The Planet Of The Apes (and most of its sequels), Earthquake, and scores of other films, died Saturday at the age of 84.

Heston was an excellent actor.  The Ten Commandments was en epic film, more a credit to DeMille than to Heston, but a great performance on his part nonetheless.  A few years later, Ben Hur brought him his only Oscar.  He also directed a few films and wrote Antony and Cleopatra.

Heston was also well know for his conservative views and caused an uproar in liberal Hollywood when he became President of the NRA in 1998.  He was a Democrat early in life, but changed party affiliation in the 60’s and was quoted as saying: “”My politics haven’t changed — it was the Democratic Party that changed.”

According to the LA Times story on his death, positions and awards included:

Besides serving as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he also was chairman of the American Film Institute, head of President Reagan’s Task Force on the Arts and Humanities, and involved in several charities. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the Council on the Arts, the executive body controlling grants made by the National Endowment for the Arts.

In addition to his Oscar, Heston received numerous U.S. and international awards and honors, among them the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2003, he was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.