LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Charlton Heston: Years
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HOLLYWOOD, CA—After nearly 40 years of wacky, lighthearted comedic roles, actor Charlton Heston finally got serious Tuesday, accepting a part in a four-hour Biblical epic to air on TNT. "I have spent my entire career doing pratfalls and mugging for the camera," Heston said. "Now I intend to wipe the smirk off my face and take on a serious, dramatic role." In the TNT drama, titled The Holy Bible, Heston will play the Biblical character Moses. Asked if he expects the transition from comedy to drama to be difficult, Heston said: "Get your stinking paws off me, you damned, dirty apes!"
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Though hampered by budgetary restrictions, Heston directed his first feature in 1971 with a decent adaptation of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" and did double duty again with "Mother Lode" (1982), which was written and produced by his son Fraser. After a fifteen year absence, the actor returned to the small screen as the star of the CBS miniseries "Chiefs" (1983) and later found work as a series regular on the primetime soap opera "The Colbys" (ABC, 1985-87) before settling into a succession of starring roles in telefilms. He directed and starred in a 1988 TNT remake of "A Man for All Seasons", reprising his stage role as Sir Thomas More. Heston went on to essay iconic fictional characters Long John Silver and Sherlock Holmes in two TNT movies adapted and produced by his son. "Treasure Island" (1990) and "The Crucifer of Blood" (1991). Although features allowed him to portray God ("Almost an Angel" 1990) and provided ample opportunity for him to use his marvelous voice as a narrator (e.g., "Armageddon" 1998), Heston continued to find his best roles on TV, adding to his gallery of historical figures with a turn as Brigham Young in TNT's "The Avenging Angel" (1995).
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On television, Heston starred on Aaron Spelling's The Colbys, as well as the television movie Proud Men, voted by TV Guide as one of the year's best. In the 1980s, his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt's A Man For All Seasonsbroke theater box-office records and drew critical acclaim in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and London. He continues to divide his time between film and the stage, recently appearing with wife Lydia in multi-city performances of the romantic comedy Love Letters. Heston ... recently starred in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, Disney's Hercules, Oliver Stone's Any Given Sundayand the current release Town and Country. He just wrapped production in Israel for an as-yet-untitled film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.
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In 1981, Heston was named co-chairman of President Ronald Reagan's Task Force on the Arts and Humanities. The following year he was in Mexico City for the State Department as an observer at the UNESCO Conference on the arts. Heston has served as the official US delegate to numerous film festivals and undertaken assignments to cultural embassies in England, Egypt, Nigeria, Australia and West Berlin. The widely traveled film star has been a member of the National Council on the Arts, and was the first chairman and president of the American Film Institute.
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Heston (George Taylor) plays the commander of a lengthy outer-space mission that is interrupted when the spaceship crashes on an 'unknown planet' years into the future. One of the astronauts (Diane Stanley ) did not make the journey well---she died when the suspended animation unit failed. After a long walk through the forbidden zone (a desert wasteland) Heston with his fellow astronauts (Jeff Burton & Robert Gunner) find paradise. But something is strange about this paradise---they encounter-humans that are as primitive as their own ancestors. These humans are mute and live like animals. Heston soon decides it will not be long before he and his men have control over this planet, when out in the distance a loud, haunting sound echoes through the corn field. Suddenly all the humans start to run in a frighten frenzied.
In his earlier years, Heston was a liberal Democrat, campaigning for Presidential candidates Adlai Stevenson in 1956 and John F. Kennedy in 1960. A civil rights activist, he accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights march held in Washington, D.C. in 1963, even going so far as to wear a sign that read "All Men Are Created Equal". Heston later claimed it a point of pride that he helped in the civil rights cause "long before Hollywood found it fashionable", as he often says in his speeches. Heston had ... planned to campaign for Lyndon Johnson, but was unable to do so when filming on Major Dundee went over schedule.
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