The first biography of 1 of the very most fascinating, complex, and polarizing legends of cinema’s golden age, Charlton Heston, from your bestselling, prize-winning writer of Cary Grant, Walt Disney, and American Rebel.

With unforgettable performances such as Moses in The Ten Commandments, the anguished astronaut George Taylor in 1968’s Globe of the Apes, and the eponymous Ben-Hur-for which he won an Academy Award-Charlton Heston cemented his put in place the pantheon of twentieth-century Hollywood about Charlton Heston: Hollywood’s Last Icon royalty. But his fame as an professional was matched by his politics activism. A democrat in his early years, Heston became a staunch supporter of Richard Nixon and Reagan republicanism. He was also leader of the National Rifle Association-an outspoken crusader for gun privileges whose incendiary words, ‘from my chilly, useless hands’ incensed liberals and became a maxim for Second Amendment followers.

Finally, New York Times bestselling author Marc Eliot tells the story of Heston’s existence and six-decade-long career in full detail. Granted exclusive usage of Heston’s diaries, characters, and personal property, Eliot skillfully unfolds the complicated story of the iconic acting professional, illuminating his most significant achievements aswell as his ideal failures and regrets. Eliot examines how a son from backwoods Michigan became Hollywood’s leading heroic actor-a superstar who not merely battled for the plumiest functions, but to keep up his identity in the dreamscape of Tinseltown. As he lays uncovered this interesting figure’s lifestyle, Eliot exposes the filthy globe of Hollywood mythmaking and Heston’s crucial part in it.

Eliot’s shifting, artful, and honest biography will pay tribute to the movie story and reveals not merely how Heston’s famous persona happened, but why. Losing new light on one of America’s biggest stars, Eliot produces an incisive and convincing family portrait for both longtime fans and a generation newly finding the storied superstar.