Charlton Heston

When I sat down on Saturday afternoon to watch The Omega Man, I had no idea that I would wake up on Sunday to discover that Charlton Heston had died. It is sad to lose such an iconic figure in American movie history. Perhaps better than any other actor, Heston found the perfect balance between serious acting(Playing Moses in The Ten Commandments and winning the Oscar for Best Actor in Ben Hur), and crowd pleasing, camp films. I never sat down and watched his big studios pictures from start to finish, choosing instead to lose myself in the solitary pursuits of Colonel Robert Neville or crazy discovery made by Detective Robert Thorn in Soylent Green. There was also his role as the title character in Sam Peckinpah's little seen film Major Dundee, where Heston plays a Calvary man leading a rag tag group against a band of Apaches. He was a true Bad Ass. The kind of star that they just don't make anymore.