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Holy Chuck | There was a lot more to Charlton Heston as an actor than funny costumes and chariot races.

Campaspe, The Self-Styled Siren | “Charlton Heston could take a character like Judah Ben-Hur, almost literally a plaster saint, and give him life. Not real life, mind you, but if you wanted reality you didn’t seek it at a roadshow engagement. What Heston gave his historical characters was the power of his own belief in them, no matter how improbable the setting. His finely detailed memoirs reveal a man who never wanted for self-respect, and it translated into a screen persona that absolutely demanded your credulity. Heston believed he was Moses, El Cid, a heterosexual Michelangelo, believed it with such burning intensity he swept the audience along. You may question the setting, the special effects, the dialogue, the dialect, the leading lady’s eyeliner, but never Heston’s absolute conviction in his character.”
Paul Clark, Screengrab | “In the middle of his elder-statesman period, Heston gave what may have been his best performance, in Kenneth Branagh’s epic production of Hamlet. Ever since his early work, Branagh has had a love for stuntcasting, often to disastrous ends. But Heston’s performance is no stunt. In the small but important role of The Player King, he shows a real aptitude for Shakespeare’s language, as well as a sensitivity to the nuances of the material. The first time I saw his performance, I couldn’t help but think that I’d underestimated Heston all these years. More than just a presence, Heston was an actor, and one who will be greatly missed.”
Joe Leydon, Moving Picture Blog | “It must be noted that during the final decades of his life, Heston effectively overshadowed his acting career with his off-camera activities as spokesman for the National Rifle Association and other conservative causes. Indeed, many people—most people?—were so accustomed to thinking of him as a right-wing grey eminence that it was all too easy to forget that, as a younger man, Heston was active in the civil rights movement—he marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King (along with Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier) during the 1963 march on Washington, D.C.—and campaigned for such decidedly non-conservative presidential candidates as Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy. Heston was, I suspect, a much more complex fellow—politically, philosophically, whatever—than either his sneering critics or fawning admirers could ever fully appreciate. And I know he was a better actor than many of my bleeding-heart liberal brethren will ever admit.”