As another Hollywood great takes his final bow, Paul Welsh reflects on the larger-than-life career of screen legend Charlton Heston.

One of the greats from Hollywood's golden era has departed for that great sound stage in the sky.

Sadly, Charlton Heston spent his final years suffering badly from that terrible senile dementia that mentally takes a person before the body.

However, he in his own words some years ago stated: "I have enjoyed a wonderful life and have packed in enough to fill two lives."

Charlton first worked in Borehamwood when he came to the MGM Studios in 1959 to co-star with Gary Cooper in The Wreck of the Mary Deare. There was a certain rivalry between the ageing superstar Cooper and the then hot Charlton, but later he admitted it was a great privilege to share the screen with one of his childhood idols.

Then, in 1969, Charlton returned to MGM to film an all-star version of Julius Caesar with Richard Chamberlain, Christopher Lee, Robert Vaughn and John Gielgud.

It proved to be a box office failure, and that was a bitter blow to Charlton whose idea it had been.

However, Christopher Lee has good memories of the movie: "As an actor he made it all look very easy, which screen acting is not, and it was enjoyable working with him. As a result of my small role, years later he picked me to act in another film based on Treasure Island with him."

I eventually met Charlton at Elstree Studios in 1980 when he came for a few pick up shots on a mummy film called The Awakening, which was not a success.

It was towards the end of his era as a major movie star. He told me how lucky he felt to have starred in such classic films as Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments, but I felt he would have been more satisfied to have been a great Shakespearean actor. He understood being a movie star often has nothing to do with being a good actor, but stardom can trap you.

Late in his career he enjoyed success in Planet of the Apes and continued acting until 2003.

The young, relatively unknown, director of The Awakening was called Mike Newell and I once wrote an article on him. A week or two later, his mum rang me asking for a copy as she had missed that week's edition. Mike has gone on to direct such films as Dance With a Stranger, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Charlton was without doubt the king of the epic. They are the kind of movie unlikely to be made again, certainly not in the same way, now we are in the age of digital magic.

In that sense, it is the end of an era, but thankfully those marvellous movies will continue to entertain us in this satellite TV and DVD age, formats never dreamt of when they were filmed.