My favorite anecdote about Charlton Heston, who died over the weekend at the age of 84, has to do with him fighting for the role of the Mexican cop in Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil. As Glenn Kenny tells it:

…any self-respecting cinephile knows that it was only through Charlton Heston’s intervention that Welles directed Touch of Evil in the first place. Welles had only been contracted to co-star in the picture as corrupt bordertown cop Hank Quinlan. When the producers contacted Heston for the lead role of Mexican narc “Mike” Vargas, they told him, “We’ve got Welles,” to which Heston replied, “Any picture Welles directs, I’ll make.” Which sent producers scurrying back to Welles, who rewrote and directed the picture for no extra fee.

Manohla Dargis, in her tribute to Heston, also waxes rhapsodic on Welles’ film, and particularly, its infamous opening tracking shot.

Shortly after the film opens, Vargas and his delectable new American bride, Susan (Janet Leigh), kiss at the Mexican-American border, a passionate embrace that leads to a cataclysmic explosion and soon plunges the newlyweds into a phantasmagoria of sleaze, violence and very low camera angles. Vargas, a celebrity cop who has brought a case against a drug ring that’s about to go to trial in Mexico City, spends much of the story separated from Susan and circling Quinlan, a dirty American lawman.

You can watch the first five minutes of Touch of Evil above. For more Heston memorials, check out David Hudson’s master list at GreenCine Daily.