Charlton Heston died last night at the age of 83. One of the great leading men of Hollywood, a man of limited range but unlimited charisma, whose wealth of memorable screen performances fortunately overwhelmed his increasingly outspoken politics, Heston never quietly enjoyed his fame, but never squandered it.

Charlton Heston's defining performance, at least for members of my generation (whether most of us realize it or not), probably came in Wayne's World 2. He played a bit part, listed in the credits as "Good Actor," brought on in a gimmick to replace a man giving Wayne directions at a gas station whom Wayne complains isn't a good actor. Heston delivers the man's lines again, but does so with such pathos, such richness, that Wayne's mugging and crying in front of the camera almost seems genuine -- and Heston's Golden Hollywood baritone overacting fits the role perfectly.

In that movie, he was an elder statesman gently sending up his own deserved legend, and for a man whose most memorable performances would seem laughably stilted if delivered today, it perfectly fit both the movie and his history. Unsurprisingly, he played virtually the same role, though not for laughs, in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet three years later; also unsurprisingly, having already pulled the trick off once, this time he was much less memorable.

His bit part in Wayne's World 2 may have been the defining role for his latter-day acting career, but, sadly, it wasn't what defined him. That came in Bowling for Columbine, when guerrilla documentarian Michael Moore depicted him, as NRA president, as the personification of much that was wrong with America's gun culture. The movie was released in 2002, the same year that Heston announced he suffered from symptoms of Alzheimer's disease; he stepped down as NRA president the next year. Michael Moore later suffered a backlash from his treatment of the aging Heston (which Moore defended by saying he had tried to "not make Heston look as evil as he actually was"), but it was the apogee of Heston's transformation from great actor into political sideshow.

Heston's closest analog may have been Ronald Reagan, as they were both Hollywood Golden Age actors whose later careers largely transitioned into conservative politics. But while Reagan's presidency was perhaps the final death knell in the career of Ronald Reagan, B-movie star of Bedtime for Bonzo, Heston's latter-day persona could never push away the memory of his greatest work, like Touch of Evil, Ben-Hur, or Planet of the Apes. By the end of his career, when he began to take roles which winked at his status as a living legend, his very presence on the screen unconsciously recalled a half-century in front of the camera.

Whenever I think of Charlton Heston, though, I think of Touch of Evil, where he played a Mexican by putting on a bad mustache, a bad tan, and, in the exact same voice as Judah Ben-Hur, he would deliver lines like, "Susie, one of the longest borders on Earth is right here between your country and mine. Open border. Fourteen hundred miles without a single machine gun in place. I suppose that all sounds very corny to you." Eyebrow raised, lips raised not in smile but in oversincerity, declaiming each line as if it were something between a pun and a psalm, every character he played had the same accent, same chiseled chin, and same wooden expression, which as he aged became ever more dignified.

Whatever he lacked in the Method, he made up in animal magnetism: he was handsome and strong, and had a voice the sound of mahogany. Heston wasn't a good actor, but he was a great one. It speaks well of us as a culture that a man's art should outlive his politics. As Little Steven van Zandt has said, "One must always separate the artist from the art. The art is always better." Charlton Heston was one of our greatest stars, and his best movies will last forever. Rest in peace, Charlton, and don't eat any Soylent Green in Heaven.

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Hollywood star Richard Widmark has died at the age of 93 after a long illness. The prolific actor, who often portrayed killers and gunslingers, made a memorable big-screen debut in 1947 as a giggling psychopath in Kiss of Death. He went on to star in such 50s classics as Night and the City, Pickup on South Street and the western Broken Lance.

The craggy-faced actor died at his home in Connecticut on Monday, according to his wife Susan Blanchard. His last film role came in the 1991 thriller True Colors, although he made occasional appearances afterwards in TV documentaries. "I now find the whole moviemaking process irritating," he said in 1987. "I don't have the patience any more."

Born in Minnesota in 1914, Widmark began his career in radio and theatre before playing cackling killer Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death. His acclaimed movies included 1961's Judgment at Nuremberg The film landed him an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe award for best newcomer - but he was not entirely enamoured with fame. "That damned laugh of mine!" he said in 1961. "For two years after that picture, you couldn't get me to smile. "I played the part the way I did because the script struck me as funny and the part I played made me laugh."

Subsequent films included 1952's Don't Bother to Knock, in which he co-starred with Marilyn Monroe, and Cold War submarine drama The Bedford Incident, which he also produced. Other notable roles included Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961, How the West was Won the following year and Cheyenne Autumn in 1964. Madigan, in which he played a loner detective, became a short-lived TV series in 1972. In the same decade, cinemagoers saw him murdered on the Orient Express and pursued by bees in The Swarm.

When not working, he and his second wife lived on a horse ranch in California or on their Connecticut farm. His daughter from his first marriage - to writer Jean Hazlewood - became the wife of baseball star Sandy Koufax.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7315340.stm

British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90. The Somerset-born author achieved his greatest fame in 1968 when his short story The Sentinel was turned into the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. His visions of space travel and computing sparked the imagination of readers and scientists alike.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse paid tribute, hailing the writer as a "great visionary". Since 1995, the author had been largely confined to a wheelchair by post-polio syndrome. He died at 0130 local time (2000 GMT) of respiratory complications and heart failure, according to his aide, Rohan De Silva. "Sir Arthur has left written instructions that his funeral be strictly secular," his secretary, Nalaka Gunawardene, was quoted as saying by news agency AFP. She said the author had requested "absolutely no religious rites of any kind".

A farmer's son, Sir Arthur was educated at Huish's Grammar School in Taunton before joining the civil service. A great science fiction writer, a very good scientist, a great prophet and a very dear friend said Sir Patrick Moore who is sure to fucking peg out soon. He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, and foresaw the concept of communication satellites. Sir Arthur's detailed descriptions of space shuttles, super-computers and rapid communications systems inspired millions of readers. When asked why he never patented his idea for communication satellites, he said: "I did not get a patent because I never thought it will happen in my lifetime."

In the 1940s, he maintained man would reach the moon by the year 2000, an idea dismissed at the time. He was the author of more than 100 fiction and non-fiction books, and his writings are credited by many observers with giving science fiction a human and practical face. He collaborated on the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey with the film's director Stanley Kubrick.

British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore had known Sir Arthur since they met as teenagers at the British Interplanetary Society. Sir Patrick paid tribute to his friend, remembering him as "a very sincere person" with "a strong sense of humour". Tributes have also come from George Whitesides, the executive director of the National Space Society, where Sir Arthur served on the board of governors, and fellow science fiction writer Terry Pratchett. He married in 1953, and was divorced in 1964. He had no children.

He moved to the Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka in 1956 after embarking on a study of the Great Barrier Reef. There, he pursued his interest in scuba diving, even setting up a diving school at Hikkaduwa, near the capital, Colombo where he also enjoyed his second favorite pastime of licking local brown cunt. "Sometimes I am asked how I would like to be remembered," he recalled recently. "I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer and space promoter. Of all these, I would like to be remembered as a writer."

Former ITN newsreader Carol Barnes has died following a stroke of bad fortune. As a TV newscaster for almost 30 years, she was one of the best known faces on British television. Carol Lesley Barnes was born on 13 September 1944 into a middle-class family in Norwich, but grew up in south London.

After attending St Martin-in-the Fields School for Girls at Tulse Hill, she left at 16 moving into a seedy flat in Earls Court." After a year out, she went to a local polytechnic to take her A-levels and then read English, French and Spanish at Sheffield University before gaining a Certificate in Education. She was part of ITV's team covering the wedding of Charles and Diana She tried her hand at supply teaching, but quickly became disillusioned and went on to a number of jobs including a post in PR at the Royal Court Theatre and a sub-editor at Time Out magazine.

During her career at ITN, she presented all of ITV's main news bulletins, including News at Ten, becoming one of the organisation's most respected broadcasters. In 1984, she was named Newscaster of the Year at the TV and Radio Industries Club Awards. Most memorable story She gained a reputation for being unflappable, never more so than when she was called in to anchor ITN's coverage of the death of Princess Diana. "This was the most memorable story I ever worked on," she later recalled. "We were on air for 16 hours."

In 1999, she announced that she was leaving ITN at the same time as her marriage to TV cameraman Nigel Thomson came to an end. She signed up to present a weekly political programme for the ITV station Meridian as well as writing magazine articles as a freelance. She rejoined ITN for the Iraq war, presenting bulletins on the new 24-hour ITV News Channel.

In 2004, her 24-year-old daughter Clare, from her long relationship with former minister Denis MacShane, was killed after her parachute malfunctioned while she was skydiving in Australia. She found it difficult to come to terms with her loss and recalled how she "ran around the house crying, screaming and banging walls" when she heard the news. She turned Clare's bedroom into a shrine, with photographs and treasured mementoes placed alongside a casket containing her ashes. A big part of me still can't accept that she's dead. I talk about her all the time as though she is still alive

Just months after the accident she was convicted of drink driving in Brighton. The incident forced her to stand down from the bench in the city where she had sat as a magistrate.

Barnes denied it was related to her loss but admitted Clare's death had brought on depression. "A big part of me still can't accept that she's dead. I talk about her all the time as though she is still alive," she said. In her last years, Barnes ran a media training company and wrote for magazines.

In January 2008, she presented an ITV programme about her former colleague Ed Mitchell's descent into alcoholism. He's alive and she's fucking dead, lets hope she left him the flat.

Porn baron and property magnate Paul Raymond has died. Raymond the son of a Liverpool lorry driver, founded a huge pornographic empire which included magazines such as Mayfair and Men Only. He was once dubbed the King of Soho and in 1958 opened the only premises in the UK to stage live striptease shows.

Raymond acquired property in London's West End in the 1970s and was thought to be worth £650m when he died. Born Geoffrey Anthony Quinn in November 1925, Raymond left school at 15 to pursue a career in showbusiness and started with a mind-reading act on Clacton Pier. He soon discovered his real talent lay as a producer and went on to exploit not only the public's fascination with sex and nudity, but also the gradual liberalisation of the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

His big break came after he side-stepped censorship laws that prevented naked women from moving on stage by having topless women stand completely still. Raymond later bought the Whitehall Theatre, where he staged sex farces with titles like Yes, We Have No Pyjamas. In 1958, Raymond also managed to exploit another loophole that exempted private clubs from censorship laws and opened the Raymond Revuebar strip club in Soho, London. The club was an instant success and the membership fees made Mr Raymond very wealthy. But he made a bigger fortune after a police crackdown in Soho in 1977. Many strip clubs and sex shops closed and Raymond bought up their premises cheaply.

Raymond also invented the market for top shelf, glossy porn magazines with the launch of Men Only magazine in 1971, followed by Club International in 1972 and became known as the British equivalent of Hugh Hefner, the American founder of Playboy. But in later years competition to his porn empire from so-called "lads mags" stifled his fortunes. Raymond called himself a spiv and behaved like one, sporting fur coats, a Rolls Royce, a tiny moustache and a fake tan.

But money did not buy him happiness. His marriage broke up acrimoniously after an affair with the model, Fiona Richmond. He was estranged from his son, and his daughter Debbie, who ran his empire for a time, died aged 36 from a drugs overdose in 1992. He ended his life a virtual recluse in a penthouse flat behind the Ritz Hotel.

Once a wanker ,always a wanker.

82.18 points.