'Ben Hur'

Charlton Heston had the flair for the dramatic in just about every facet of his career.

I mean, he was dramatic in his acting to begin with. But the guy wound up playing Andrew Jackson (twice), Moses, John the Baptist, Michaelangelo, El Cid, Marc Antony (twice), Henry VIII and, of course, God.

It takes a certain type of person to take on those roles and doesn't even account for his greatest role as Judah Ben Hur, the wayward, hard luck Jew who went from being a friend to all, a criminal, a slave, friendless and aggrieved to being the man he always was.

Despite all his fantastic roles and films, Heston won one Academy Award -- for Ben Hur. It was his only nomination.

Heston an interesting character. Most know him as the hard-right, gun-toting Republican, who loved his automatic firearms, his babies and his right wingers.

Interestingly, Heston had always been involved in politics and social issues. Just on the other side.

In the 1960s, he was one of several Hollywood types that marched on Washington for civil rights alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He even picketed segregated restaurants in Oklahoma City.

He campaigned for progressives such as Democrats Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy. He supported President Lyndon B. Johnson's Gun Control Act of 1968. He opposed the Vietnam War.

Then some time in the 1980s he flipped a switch and turned into a Republican, the one we would know later in his life. Or, as Heston puts it, the Democratic Party flipped a switch.