Screen Legend Charlton Heston Dead At 84
By BUCK WOLF
April 6, 2008 
Charlton Heston, who divided the Red Sea as Hollywood's Moses and divided America as leader of the National Rifle Association, died at age 84 on Saturday night at his Beverly Hills, Calif., home after a battle with Alzheimer's disease.

The acclaimed actor dies of Alzheimer's at his home.The accliamed actor, who was born, John Charlton Carter in Evanston, Ill., became known as much for his politics as his acting in his final decades in public life.

A towering figure in Hollywood, Heston defined his show business career portraying iconic and heroic figures, painting masterpieces as Michelangelo, racing chariots in "Ben-Hur" and defending the last vestiges of humanity in "Planet of the Apes."

Offscreen, Heston was as fiercely outspoken as many of his characters. In the 1960s, he was a civil rights activist, marching alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Later in life, he saw gun advocacy as a natural extension of civil liberties � defiantly hoisting a rifle in the air at NRA rallies and vowing that his opponents would have to pry it away "from my cold dead hands."