Charlton Heston A Tribute To A Hollywood Legend

Charlton Heston, who won a best actor Oscar for his starring role in the epic Ben Hur has died, a spokesman for the star's family has said.

Heston died on Saturday 6th April at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia, whom he married in 1944, at his side.

Whether starring as Judah Ben Hur, Michelangelo or Moses, Charlton Heston personified the larger-than-life heroes of the Hollywood epic.

Charlton Heston's life story reads like a film script. From the backwoods of Michigan, he became one of the world's most famous faces, a high-profile campaigner for Civil Rights and an unapologetic president of America's National Rifle Association.

He was born John Charles Carter in Evanston, Illinois.

By his own admission "shy, skinny, short and pimply", he studied acting before serving for three years in the US Air Force.

In 1952, after working on Broadway, Heston starred as the ringmaster in the movie, The Greatest Show on Earth. Four years later, he appeared as Moses in The Ten Commandments, the role which would define his career.

Physically imposing at six foot four, with granite-hewn features and a deep, sonorous voice, he radiated screen presence.

No role was too big for Heston. In The Greatest Story Ever Told, he was John the Baptist; he played El Cid, along with Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy and General Gordon in Khartoum.

And, in 1959, he won an Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in Ben Hur.

The science fiction film, Planet of the Apes, proved a big commercial success in the late 1960s, and Heston almost became a fixture in 1970s disaster movies like Earthquake and Skyjacked.

And his big-screen performance in the environmentally-tinged sci-fi thriller, Soylent Green, brought him cult status among a younger audience.

The 1980s saw a rare foray onto television, as Jason Colby in The Colbys.

But, later in his career, Heston turned increasingly back to the stage

On 9 August 2002, he issued a statement, announcing that his doctors had diagnosed "a neurological disorder whose symptoms are consistent with Alzheimer's disease".

Charlton Heston, along with many critics, felt his best film performance was as the shy, awkward ranch hand in Will Penny.

And while Charlton Heston will always be identified with heroes who lived before the birth of his country, it was perhaps the American pioneer who was closest to his heart.

A passing of a true Hollywood legend, Charlton Heston will be sadly missed.

How is the Olympic flame kept alight?

Visiting 135 cities in 21 countries, covering 137,000 kms in 130 days. How does the Olympic flame remain burning, even on a plane?

When the Olympic torch is paraded through London on Sunday, all eyes will be on stars like Dame Kelly Holmes and cricketer Kevin Pietersen.

According to the strict traditions of the Olympic movement, and to mark the ancient rituals of the Games, the flame must be kept alive until the closing ceremony of the Games in Beijing in August.

That's all very well when the cameras are rolling and the torch is in the safe hands of a double gold medallist or a world-class cricketer.

But what about the more mundane parts of the journey?

A team of about 10 "flame attendants" is responsible for the 24-hour, safe passage of the flame, which has been ignited by the sun's rays on the ancient site of Olympia in Greece.

The torch, which is fuelled by propane, is used to carry the flame during each day's relays, when runners in the relay city carry it, mostly on foot.

But there are several lanterns which are lit from the same source and they keep the flame alive at night or on aircraft when the torch is extinguished.

For air travel, where open flames are not allowed, the flame burns in the enclosed lanterns, which act like miner's lamps.

The torch, the lanterns and the team of attendants, plus other security, fly in a specially-chartered Air China plane bearing an Olympic flame design.

'Always burning'

The lanterns spend each night in a single hotel room with three guards - one of which must be awake at any time.

"Security people try their best to keep the flame safe," says a spokeswoman for the Beijing Organising Committee.

"The flame is always burning, whether on the plane or during the relay or overnight. It's kept in the hotel where the core operation team is staying."

The convoy accompanying the torch while it makes its way through city streets has more than 20 vehicles provided by the relay city and they escort the torch in a set order (a section of which is pictured above).

Most of this journey is on foot, but other modes of transport over the years have included dog sled, horse, canoe and camel.

In London, it will be carried on two boats, a bike, a bus and the Docklands Light Railway.

For a trip across the Great Barrier Reef before the 2000 Olympic Games, a special torch was designed to burn underwater.

The flame made its first trip in a plane in 1952 and has also travelled on Concorde. The torch, but not the flame, has twice been into space.

The torch itself has been produced to withstand winds of up to 65 kilometres per hour and to stay alight in rain up to 50mm an hour. But should it go out, it is lit from one of the lanterns.

This was needed in 2004 when the flame went out in the Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens at the start of the torch relay.

It also went out in 1976 after the Montreal Olympics had started and an official mistakenly relit it using a cigarette lighter. That was doused and it was relit again using the special lantern flame.

Keeping the flame alive is a tradition that began in Olympia in Greece, where the Ancient Olympic Games took place. Fire had divine associations because it was believed Prometheus had stolen it from the Gods.

A flame burned throughout the Games on the altar of the goddess Hestia, situated in the Prytaneum, the building used for the post-Games banquets.

This fire was lit by the sun's rays and it was used to light other fires of the sanctuary, such as the altars of Zeus - the Games were held in his honour - and Hera.

To honour this, the present Olympic torch relay begins at the Temple of Hera several months before the Games, where it is lit by a woman in ceremonial robes using a mirror and the sun.

This gives the flame a purity that is maintained until it enters the Olympics stadium for the opening ceremony.

The final torchbearer, whose identity is kept secret until the last moment, lights the monumental Olympic cauldron in the stadium, which is kept alight until the closing ceremony.

The Olympic flame was reintroduced to the modern Olympics in Amsterdam in 1928 and the first torch relay was held eight years later in Berlin.

This became a global event for the Athens Games in 2004, which meant that honouring the tradition of keeping the flame going became more difficult.

source : BBC