LOS ANGELES — Charlton Heston, the Oscar-winning actor who achieved stardom playing larger-than-life figures including Moses, Michelangelo, and Andrew Jackson and went on to become an unapologetic gun advocate and darling of conservative causes, has died. He was 84.

Heston died Saturday at his Beverly Hills home, family spokesman Bill Powers said. In 2002, he had been diagnosed with symptoms similar to those of Alzheimer’s disease.

With a booming baritone voice, the tall, ruggedly handsome actor delivered his signature role as the prophet Moses in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 Biblical extravaganza “The Ten Commandments,” raising a rod over his head as God miraculously parts the Red Sea.

Heston won the Academy Award for best actor in another religious blockbuster in 1959’s “Ben-Hur,” racing four white horses at top speed in one of the cinema’s legendary action sequences — the 15-minute chariot race in which his character, a proud and noble Jew, competes against his childhood Roman friend.

Late in life, Heston’s stature as a political firebrand overshadowed his acting. He became demonized by gun-control advocates and liberal Hollywood when he became president of the National Rifle Association in 1998.

Heston answered his critics in a now-famous pose that mimicked Moses’s parting of the Red Sea. But instead of a rod, Heston raised a flintlock over his head and challenged his detractors to pry the rifle “from my cold, dead hands.”

Heston will be best remembered for several indelible cinematic moments: playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with Orson Welles in the oil fields in “Touch of Evil,” his rant at the end of “Planet of the Apes” when he sees the destruction of the Statue of Liberty, his discovery that “Soylent Green is people!” in the sci-fi hit “Soylent Green,” and the dead Spanish hero on his steed in “El Cid.”

In her review of 1968’s “Planet of the Apes,” a film critic of the New Yorker, Pauline Kael, wrote: “All this wouldn’t be so forceful or so funny if it weren’t for the use of Charlton Heston in the (leading) role. With his perfect, lean-hipped, powerful body, Heston is a godlike hero; built for strength, he is an archetype of what makes Americans win. He represents American power — and he has the profile of an eagle.”

For decades, the 6-foot-2 Heston was a towering figure in the world of movies, television, and the stage.

He also worked with legendary directors such as DeMille in “The Greatest Show on Earth” and again in “The Ten Commandments,” Welles in “Touch of Evil,” Sam Peckinpah in “Major Dundee,” William Wyler in “The Big Country” and “Ben-Hur,” George Stevens in “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” Franklin Schaffner in “The War Lord” and “Planet of the Apes,” and Anthony Mann in “El Cid.”

“Four or five of those men would be on anybody’s all-time great list,” Heston said in a 1983 interview. “And if I picked up one scrap, one piece of business, from each of them, then today I would be a hell of a director.”

John Charles Carter was born October 4, 1923, in Evanston, Ill. His father, Russell Whitford Carter, moved the family to St. Helen, Mich., where Heston lived an almost idyllic boyhood, hunting and fishing.

He entered Northwestern University’s School of Speech in 1941 on a scholarship from the drama club. While there, he fell in love with a young speech student named Lydia Clarke. They were married March 14, 1944, after he had enlisted in the Army Air Forces. Their union was one of the most durable in Hollywood, lasting 64 years.

After the war, he went on countless auditions as a stage actor in New York. His professional name was a combination of his mother’s maiden name, Charlton, and the last name of his stepfather, Chester Heston.

He made his Broadway debut opposite legendary stage actress Katharine Cornell in Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” as Proculeius, Caesar’s aide-decamp.

It was his chance meeting on the Paramount Pictures lot with DeMille that propelled Heston to stardom. The role that the flamboyant director wanted him for was the rugged circus manager in the 1952 big-top spectacular, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” which won the Academy Award for best picture. Over the next three years, Heston made 11 movies, playing Buffalo Bill Cody in “Pony Express” and Andrew Jackson in “The President’s Lady.”

Then DeMille entered his life again, casting Heston as Moses in “The Ten Commandments.”

He wasn’t the only Heston in the film. His baby son, Fraser, made his screen debut as the infant Moses who is carried downstream in a basket.

“The Ten Commandments,” a blockbuster hit, was followed by “Touch of Evil” and “The Big Country.”

Then came “Ben-Hur.”

The film went on to win 11 Oscars, including best picture and best director for Wyler.

Playing larger-than-life heroes seemed to carry over into real-life politics for Heston. He was one of the major Hollywood stars who marched with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights era.

But Heston’s politics soon veered right, and he became an admirer of conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who was the Republican Party nominee for president in 1964.

“My politics haven’t changed –it was the Democratic Party that changed,” the actor said.

In 1998, with his acting career waning, Heston became president of the National Rifle Association and instantly became one of the more politically polarizing figures in America.

In 2003, he was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bush.

In addition to his wife and son, Heston is survived by a daughter, Holly Heston Rochell, and three grandchildren.