Everyone has a different memory image of Charlton Heston, who died last month at the age of 84.To many he portrayed the ultimate Moses, delivering his people from Egypt and ascending Jubal Musa to receive the Ten Commandments.

To others he became Ben-Hur, Michelangelo or a combination of so many impressive roles he played in more than 100 films.

To us he was all of those, but on a more approachable, down-to-earth level as the "local boy who made good", frequently coming home to visit his mother.

John Charles Carter was born in Chicago's North Shore on October 4, 1923. Spending his early youth in Michigan, where his father ran a lumber mill, he attended a one-room school there. Always outdoor-oriented, it was there he became proficient in fishing and self-reliance.

Back then his family already called him Charlton, mother Lilla Charlton's maiden name. His mother remarried when he was ten, moved back to the North Shore and he took his stepfather's name . . . Heston.

Like Rock Hudson, Hugh O'Brien and Ann Margret, he attended local New Trier High School, where he became active in drama. That led to a drama scholarship at Northwestern University where he is much acclaimed as a very loyal alumnus. It was there he met his wife Lydia Clarke and his rise to fame was swift and dramatic.

He was often in town on promotional tours involving films, a good excuse to visit his mother who lived in our village until her death. Surprisingly, there was a small estate sale at her residence after her death, but we were out of the country and missed it.

Like so many film fans, viewing Cecil B. de Mille's 1956 classic TheTen Commandments has become an Easter ritual in our household. During one interview, I told the always personable actor how that film had impacted my first trip to Israel.

It was a unique trip from start to finish. I was just starting in the journalism world when invited to fly off on an unusual one-woman press trip on TWA's inaugural flight from New York to Tel Aviv in the 1970s.

The film, originally released in 1956, was already a classic tremendously popular at that time. I'd suggested to my Chicago Tribune travel editor that a column about the site where historians and tradition say it all happened would make an appropriate Easter column. He agreed.

If timed right, I'd be able to take a side trip down to the Sinai location of Jubal Musa above St. Catherine's Monastery. As it was under Israeli occupation at the time, it was not easy to arrange. But high on my "must visit list", I was determined and finally took off on a dawn-to-dark-adventure.

It's such a mystical, magic place, I've returned twice since for longer visits, but am now discouraged from encores by chilling major terrorism acts in both Taba and Sharm el Sheik visited on those trips.

"Many films I've made have been like taking a history course," commented Heston. He was noted for immersing himself in his roles.

For example, he spent days learning to manage horses so he could appear in 80 per cent of those incredible Ben-Hur (1959) chariot racing scenes actually at the reins himself. It earned him an Academy Award.

In The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959), he concentrated on learning to dive in order to perform those sequences with limited use of stuntmen.

Enlisting in the US Army Air Force in 1944, Heston spent three years stationed in Alaska's Aleutians, then very much threatened by fear of further Japanese attacks and invasion.

"Making some of those movies certainly had an element of the travelogue about them," he had reminisced. El Cid (1961) took him to Spain with Sophia Loren, recreating the role of the famous 11th-century hero who drove the Moors from Spain.

In The Agony and Ecstasy (1965) he introduced viewers to Rome's Sistine Chapel, recreating Michelangelo's conflict with Rex Harrison as the Pope; 55 Days at Peking (1962) recalled the 1900s Boxer Rebellion, with David Niven, Ava Gardner and Paul Lukas.

Major Dundee (1964), with Richard Harris, James Coburn and Ben Johnson, portrayed a cavalry officer leading a colourful group of enlisted men against the Apache.

And even when they weren't always actually filmed on the location where the action happened, they colourfully portrayed history of events.

When Heston played famous British officer "Chinese" Gordon in Khartoum (1966), it inspired my lifelong desire to visit the site of the Battle of Omdurman, yet to be realised. At one point, he told us: "So far I've played three presidents, three saints, geniuses, pilots, adventurers, a cardinal and an astronaut." When pressed to run for public office, he proclaimed: "I'd rather play a senator than be one." But he was president of the Screen Actors Guild following Ronald Reagan's term in that office.

The President's Lady (1953) fictionalised the life of Andrew Jackson's wife. Susan Hayward was the lady with a past that would make sizzling censored headlines even today!

He returned as Jackson in The Buccaneer (1958), but we never did ask about his view of something that's always bothered us. Andrew Jackson actually defied the US Supreme Court when it ruled that he cease and desist evacuation of seven Indian tribes from their lands. But he persisted, forcing them on the horrendous "Trail of Tears" which many didn't survive.

A great admirer of Martin Luther King, Heston participated in Washington's 1963 march, labelling him "a 20th-century Moses for his people". Unlike many film celebrities, Heston did not seek limelight socialising with the jet set. He preferred a quiet, private life. Work, sketching, reading biographies and writing held more appeal than the party scene.

Of English and Scots heritage, his family had been part of Scotland's Fraser clan, which answered my question of how he happened to name his only son Fraser Clarke Heston.

We were just starting to write about movies filmed on location when The Hawaiians (1970) brought the islands to the screen in all their beauty and lively history. This sequel to Hawaii continued James Michener's epic best-seller of that enchanted land on a grand scale.

To retrace its history, Michener followed events in the lives of two couples. Hoxworths (Heston and Geraldine Chaplin) were descendants of missionaries, locally called "the ones who came to do good and did well".

The Kees are a Chinese couple struggling with leprosy. Exiled to the dreaded island of Molokai was considered a death sentence. That was before famed Father Damian arrived, dedicating his life to improving the leper colony's ghastly conditions.

Integral to the plot is the arrival of the first Chinese and Japanese workers, development of the pineapple industry and political evolution of the islands from a monarchy to a republic.

Woven throughout are personal experiences of those two families during 30 years from 1870-1900.

Kauai, where major portions of filming were done, is smallest and further west of the four main islands. It's always been our personal favourite and for years we rented a beach house there north of Haena for several weeks each autumn in a very unspoiled area.

Travel has taken us in different directions the last few years, but we'll return soon. Gorgeously lush, its spectacular scenery was shown in both South Pacific and Jurassic Park.

Viewers who like to see their history portrayed authentically will be pleased with the film's attention to detail. English, Japanese, Hawaiian, Punto Chinese, pidgen English and Hakka Chinese are used in scenes where called for, with sub-titles serving as translation.

"Ironically, hardest chore they found was discovering someone whose Hawaiian was fluent enough to coach Geraldine Chaplin. Sons and grandsons of those who actually lived through that era acted as extras." said Heston.

A few years later he was back in town promoting 1974's The Four Musketeers: The Revenge of Milady, second half of Alexander Dumas' epic. Michael York (d'Artagan) and Richard Chamberlain (Aramis) added to antics of this swashbuckling spoof.

This time Heston is the controversial Cardinal Richelieu, while Raquel Welch and Faye Dunaway do their best (or worst) to distract musketeers.

The setting is actually Spain where cameras focus in on the wealth of castles and mediaeval villages which make it such a prime tourist destination. "You could actually visit a castle a day there and keep going for years," marvelled Heston, who liked to sightsee while making films.

For those who have visited Spain, the film will probably be one long series of "Isn't that the Alcázar?", "Didn't we see that monastery in Lupiana?" and "I remember that room in the Royal Palace".

Name almost any place you think you recognise and chances are you're right.

"The roster of locations reads like a travelogue," said Heston.

"We used a number of tiny, spectacularly beautiful villages and well-preserved castles, palaces, monasteries and convents. Places like Talamanca de Jarama, Ucles, Osuna and Valdertorres. Some get only a quick glimpse, others are on camera for several sequences."

Among the most famous are the Royal Palaces. The scene at the palace in Aranjuez and La Granja make it easy to understand why the Kings of Spain considered them a kind of Versailles.

Another standout is the turreted fortress-castle of the Alcázar at Segovia which sits atop a river's edge cliff like something from Grimm's Fairy Tales.

"The pace was enough to make you dizzy," reminisced Heston.

"One day we were wandering among cypress avenues at La Granja, the next we might be leaping over a balcony near Toledo."

Next Week: Las Vegas . . . fun and foreclosure