“Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape.” – Taylor (Charlton Heston) in Planet of the Apes (1968)

Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing “Ben-Hur” and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid, Taylor, and other heroic figures in movie epics of the ’50s and ’60s, has died. He was 84.

Heston spokesman Bill Powers says the actor died Saturday night, April 5, 2008, at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia was at his side.

Heston revealed in 2002 that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s disease, saying, “I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure.”

With his large, muscular build, well-boned face and sonorous voice, Heston proved the ideal star during the period when Hollywood was filling movie screens with panoramas depicting the religious and historical past. “I have a face that belongs in another century,” he often remarked.

The Planet of the Apes has overlapped with some debunking conversations about various pieces of cryptozoological evidence. Indeed, The Planet of the Apes has been an on-going part of the discussions of both the Patterson-Gimlin footage (see here) and more recently, the Myakka “ape” photographs (see here).