Entertainment Movies Charlton Heston's Wife, Actress Lydia Clarke Heston, Dies at 95 Clarke Heston was married to Charlton Heston for 64 years and joined the March on Washington in 1963. By Maura Hohman Maura Hohman Maura Hohman is a former news writer at PEOPLE. She left PEOPLE in 2019. People Editorial Guidelines Published on September 6, 2018 11:35AM EDT Actress Lydia Clarke Heston, who was married to late Oscar winner Charlton Heston for 64 years, died Monday. She was 95. Clarke Heston was known for her roles in Sidney Kingsley’s Detective Story on Broadway, which opened in 1949; her first feature, Atomic City, opposite Gene Barry; and The Greatest Show on Earth, which premiered in 1952 and also starred her husband. From Aretha Franklin to Anthony Bourdain: Remembering the Stars We’ve Lost in 2018 Keystone/Getty Hailing from Wisconsin, Clarke Heston met Charlton in an acting class at Northwestern University. They married in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1944, before he went overseas to serve in World War II. Ron Galella/WireImage In the mid-50s, the mother of two left acting to pursue another artistic medium: photography. According to The Hollywood Reporter, her work was placed in galleries worldwide and published in multiple books. RELATED VIDEO: Remembering Princess Diana 21 Years After Her Death “She lived an amazing life,” the couple’s son, Fraser, told Fox News. “At 95 years old she knew a lot of famous people from John F. Kennedy to Nancy and Ronald Reagan.” Fraser also shared that his mother “sailed every sea in the world” despite being “prone to sea-sickness” and that her personality was “active” and “vibrant.” Charlton Heston Dies at 84 Eric Robert/Sygma/Corbis/Getty Clarke Heston also actively participated in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, she joined and photographed the March on Washington. She died at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Charlton Heston was famous for playing Moses in 1956’s The Ten Commandments, as well as Ben-Hur (1959) and Planet of the Apes (1968). He died on April 5, 2008, at 84.