Oscar-winning actor Charlton Heston, one of America's leading advocates for the right to own guns, said today that he is suffering from a neurological disorder consistent with Alzheimer's disease.
In a video-taped announcement played at a Beverly Hills news conference, the 78-year-old actor, who is also president of the National Rifle Association, said he was going public with his illness after having "lived my whole life on the stage and screen before you."
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Charlton Heston
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Heston, famed for his role as Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's epic
The Ten Commandments
, said, "For an actor there is no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can't part with you, which is why I won't exclude you from this stage in my life."
Former President Ronald Reagan, an old friend of Heston's, disclosed in November 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Heston said that for now he would continue living a normal life but added, "If you see a little less spring in my step, if your name fails to leap to my lips, you'll know why. And if I tell you a funny story for the second time, please laugh anyway."
He said his doctors had recently told him he had a "neurological disorder whose symptoms are consistent with Alzheimer's disease. So I wanted to prepare a few words for you now because when the times comes, I may not be able to."
The square-jawed performer won an Oscar as best actor for his title role in the 1959 gladiator epic Ben-Hur. Other notable film credits include roles as Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy, an astronaut trapped in a strange world in the original Planet of the Apes, and a circus manager in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth.