In the 1959 movie version of Ben Hur the character of Jesus Christ was played by the late American actor Claude Heater. He was not included in the credits for the movie. All the shots of Heater in the film showed him facing away from the camera as it was decided not to show his face in the film.
As filming progressed, Heater was given more time in front of the camera and a few lines, but British law at the time forbid Jesus to speak or his face to be seen if he were a “secondary character.” So, Heater as Jesus appears only from behind, as when he gives water to Charlton Heston's enslaved Judah Ben-Hur.
Claude Heater (October 25, 1927 – May 28, 2020) was an American opera singer. He is also known for portraying the role of Jesus Christ (uncredited in the titles) in the 1959 classic film Ben-Hur.
Several actors were offered the role of Judah Ben-Hur before it was accepted by Charlton Heston. Burt Lancaster stated he turned down the role because he found the script boring and belittling to Christianity. Paul Newman turned it down because he said he didn't have the legs to wear a tunic.
In 1959, the busiest year of his career, Le Mesurier took part in 13 films, including I'm All Right Jack, which was the most successful of Le Mesurier's credited films that year; he also had an uncredited role as a doctor in Ben-Hur.
Not very. While many details are correct, there is one glaring error: the Roman admiral Quintus Arrius would not have been granted a triumph after defeating the pirates.
He suffered a stomach haemorrhage in 1983 and was taken to Ramsgate Hospital. His final words before slipping into a coma were, “It's all been rather lovely”.
As filming progressed, Heater was given more time in front of the camera and a few lines, but British law at the time forbid Jesus to speak or his face to be seen if he were a “secondary character.” So, Heater as Jesus appears only from behind, as when he gives water to Charlton Heston's enslaved Judah Ben-Hur.
However, the film failed to generate the same kind of excitement as the Heston epic. The filmmakers had some success attracting faith-based consumers, but couldn't grow the audience beyond the devout. Kids stayed away, critics lobbed bombs, and secular consumers took a hard pass.
The story recounts the adventures of Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince from Jerusalem, who is enslaved by the Romans at the beginning of the first century and becomes a charioteer and a Christian. Running in parallel with Judah's narrative is the unfolding story of Jesus, from the same region and around the same age.
He is sent to be a slave, and his mother and sister are imprisoned. Years later he returns, wins a chariot race against Messala, and is reunited with his now leprous mother and sister. The mother and sister are cured on the day of the Crucifixion, and the family is converted to Christianity.
At the time, shooting on location was all the rage and Ben-Hur began photography in Italy. The production suffered from long delays, underwhelming dailies, and deaths (more than 100 horses, and at least one person).
Although Judah Ben Hur is a fictional character created by General Lew Wallace in his novel, there was a Ben Hur in the Bible. In First Kings 4:1–19, there were chief officials appointed by Solomon, king if Israel, to supply provisions to the court.
Though Christ's life is traced from his birth, to his hidden life, to his public ministry, to his passion and death, we never see his face or hear his voice. Instead, Ben-Hur is a classic revenge epic leavened with a pious message of forgiveness.
Ben-Hur. After a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend in 1st-century Jerusalem, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge. Banned for "propaganda of superstitious beliefs, namely Christianity".
The third and fourth Avengers films (Infinity War and Endgame) stand as the most expensive back-to-back film production, with combined production costs of over $1 billion, according to one of the directors. Ben-Hur (1925) was the most expensive film of the silent era, possibly holding the record for over twenty years.
The bigger problem is that it's another movie made by Christians that fails to do justice to their faith. The original novel, Ben-Hur was published in 1880. It tells the story of a Judean prince, betrayed and condemned to slavery by his Roman friend, Messala, who then returns to seek revenge.
Did Charlton Heston really drive the horses in Ben-Hur?
Yes, in close-up shots, that's really Charlton Heston (as Judah Ben-Hur) and Stephen Boyd (as his rival Messala) driving the chariots. They trained for months to learn how to drive the four-horse teams. In long shots, however, the chariots are driven by stuntmen.
There was, from the start, something monumental, something reminiscent of Mount Rushmore, about Heston with his 6ft 3in height and chiselled features. He could be angry, threatening and cruel, but he couldn't be commonplace, diffident or funny.
His death, and those of Bill Pertwee in 2013, Pamela Cundell in 2015, Frank Williams in 2022 and Ian Lavender in 2024 means that there are now no surviving Dad's Army principal cast members. Frank Williams, who played the Vicar in Dad's Army, said Dunn was always "great fun" to be around.
Dad's Army star Ian Lavender has said how the show's iconic cast were so close. The actor, 76, who played Private Frank Pike in the show, admitted that he once promised co-star John Laurie (who played Private James Frazer) that he would never divulge the secrets they shared.
