One of America's finest actors died this weekend, Charlton Heston succumbed after a long illness. Heston was a man who was ahead of his time and contributed much more than a body of work as an actor to the nation.

I once bumped into Charlton Heston on a visit to Los Angeles to visit my brother. I was headed for the ticket booth, located about 50 feet or so from the artist's entrance to CBS studios, when a short woman came running out of nowhere and bumped into me and knocked me back a couple of steps. I bumped into someone and turned around to apologize and it was Charlton Heston. I had started to say something but only stammered. I can't recall exactly what he said, I was so flustered, but he smiled and said something about dynamite in small packages or something similar, then went on into the building.

But more than a chance encounter 30 years ago that lasted perhaps five seconds there was another reason I took an interest in Heston, he suffered from Alzheimer's, as does my father-in-law, Elmer Sass. Alzheimer's is a vicious disease, it robs a person of what makes them unique, their memories. Alzheimer's does this in a particularly nasty way, it takes years to kill its victims and during that time they have lucid periods where they realize what they've lost.

Heston went public with his diagnosis in 2002, saying that he did so because his audience had always been important to him. Some liberal pinheads made rude comments about his illness and Heston ignored most of them but did pop at least one liberal's puffed up ego. George Clooney made an exceedingly rude statement and Heston responded with an effortless slapdown: "It's funny how class can skip a generation, isn't it?"

Best known by young people as the head of the National Rifle Association, Heston was politically active for years - long before it became fashionable. In 1961 he joined a picket line outside a theater playing one of his movies because the theater was segregated and marched against his own picture. During a civil rights march in Washington, D.C. in 1963 he accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. in support.

Heston confounded some of his critics because he took what liberals thought of as conflicting positions on issues. An ardent supporter of civil rights Heston opposed affirmative action. A supporter of the Gun Control Act of 1968 he was president, of the National Rifle Association and called his earlier support of gun control "misguided".

In addition to his master works Heston made some strange choices as an actor. During the seventies he seemed to be a science-fiction staple. Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, Earthquake (in Sensuround) and The Omega Man.

When someone as larger-than-life as Charlton Heston dies it seems to diminish all of us. My prayers are with his family and I hope that they can now find some relief knowing that he no longer suffers.