Charlton Heston, a famous American actor and political acitivist, was born on October 4, 1923, and spent at least part of his childhood in northern Michigan.
When Heston was an infant, his father’s work moved the family to St. Helen, Michigan. It was a rural, heavily forested part of the state, and Heston lived an isolated yet idyllic existence, spending much time hunting and fishing in the backwoods of the area. Heston frequently recounted that while growing up in northern Michigan in a sparsely populated area, he often wandered in the forest, “acting” out characters from books he had read.
As a Hollywood star, he appeared in almost 100 films over the course of 60 years. He played Moses in the epic film, The Ten Commandments (1956), for which he received his first nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. He also starred in Touch of Evil (1958) with Orson Welles, Ben-Hur (1959), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid (1961), and Planet of the Apes (1968). He also starred in the films The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Secret of the Incas (1954), The Big Country (1958) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).
A supporter of Democratic politicians and civil rights in the 1960s, Heston later became a Republican, founding a conservative political action committee and supporting Ronald Reagan. Heston was the five-term president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), from 1998 to 2003. After being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2003, he retired from both acting and the NRA presidency. Heston died on April 5, 2008, aged 84, from pneumonia.
Source : Charlton Heston wikipedia entry