On This Day

Birthday of Charlton Heston

October 4th 1923

10:41 4 October 2024

American actor Charlton Heston was born on this day in 1923. Heston made his film debut in 'Dark City' (1950). His breakthrough came when Cecil B. DeMille cast him as a circus manager in 'The Greatest Show on Earth' (1952) which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. International recognition came when he played Moses in 'The Ten Commandments' (1956) and he quickly became synonymous with starring in Hollywood historical epics including 'Ben Hur' (1959), 'El Cid' (1961), '55 Days at Peking' (1963), 'The Greatest Story Ever Told' (1965), 'The Agony and the Ecstasy' (1965), 'The War Lord' (1965) and 'Khartoum' (1966). Heston also starred in the westerns 'Major Dundee' (1965) and 'Will Penny' (1968) at this point of his career.

A change of direction came when he starred in the hugely successful 'Planet of the Apes' (1968). Two more classic science fiction films followed with 'The Omega Man' (1971) and 'Soylent Green' (1973). The disaster movie genre was big business at the box office in the 1970s and Heston starred in several of the biggest including 'Earthquake' (1974), 'Airport 1975' (1975), 'Two-Minute Warning' (1976) and 'Gray Lady Down' (1978). Heston's later career mainly involved TV work but there were still film appearances in 'Wayne's World 2' (1993), 'Tombstone' (1993), 'True Lies' (1994) and 'Any Given Sunday' (1999).

In 2002 Charlton Heston publicly announced he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and in 2008 he passed away at his home in Beverly Hills, California having starred in some of Hollywood's greatest ever films.