So, Charlton Heston is dead. Now somebody can get his gun away from him.

Although in recent years he had increasingly become associated with right wing politics and extreme conservatism, it is a fact that he was one of the first high-profile white personalities to support Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. Contrary sort of person - or do we all just get more reactionary as we get older?

Let's not forget that he also made some great films - 'Ben Hur' is one of the all-time Hollywood epics - a beautiful piece of work - and he personally ensured that Orson Welles directed 'Touch Of Evil', turning it from a b-movie potboiler into something far more substantial. I'm sure lots of board members would also have love for 'Soylent Green' and 'The Omega Man'. For me, however, it's all about 'Planet Of The Apes' (& 'Beneath the POTA') - another obsession. I must have watched those films a hundred times apiece - and I always used to come to the same conclusion about Heston -I didn't like him in the slightest (he was always unsympathetic and arrogant) - but there was something about him that was believable and worthy of respect.

This was before he started wearing that acrylic wig, of course, which somewhat demeaned him.

Anyway - thanks, Chuck - some of your films were brilliant.