Charlton Heston, best known for such epic films as The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, has appeared in more than forty motion pictures, among them The Agony and the Ecstasy, Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, and True Lies. He has received a number of awards both in the United States and abroad, including a Best Actor Academy Award^(R) for Ben-Hur. Away from the camera, he has been active in the Screen Actors Guild, the American Film Institute, and the Center Theatre Group of Los Angeles.

Orson Welles (1915-1985) was an iconic Academy Award-winning director, writer, actor, and producer for film, stage, radio, and television. He won the 1941 Academy Award for best original screenplay for Citizen Kane and in 1970 received the Academy Honorary Award. Known for his baritone voice, he was well regarded as a radio and film actor, a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor, and an accomplished magician. He first gained notoriety for his October 30, 1938, radio broadcast of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Winner of multiple awards, he is now widely acknowledged as one of the most important dramatic artists of the twentieth century. In 2002, two British Film Institute polls of directors and critics voted Orson Welles the greatest film director of all time.