Everything about Charles Bronson totally explained
Charles Bronson (born
Charles Dennis Buchinsky,
Lithuanian name
Karolis Bučinskis,
November 3,
1921 –
August 30,
2003) was an American
actor known for "tough guy" roles who starred in such classic films as
Once Upon a Time in the West,
The Magnificent Seven,
The Dirty Dozen,
The Great Escape and the
Death Wish series. In many of his roles, he played a
police detective,
western gunfighter,
boxer,
vigilante or
Mafia hitman.
Biography
Early life and World War II service
Bronson was born in the notorious
Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania coal-mining neighborhood of Scooptown in the
Pittsburgh Tri-State area.
He was the 11th of 15 children born to a
Lithuanian Tatar immigrant father and a
Lithuanian-American mother. His father was from the Lithuanian town of
Druskininkai.
Bronson's father died when he was only 10, and he went to work in the coal mines like his older brothers until he was drafted for
World War II. He earned $1 per ton of coal mined. His family was so poor that, at one time, he reportedly had to wear his sister's dress to school because he'd nothing else to wear.
In
1943, Bronson joined the
United States Army Air Forces and served as an aircraft gunner in the 760th Flexible Gunnery Training Squadron, and in 1945 as a
B-29 Superfortress crewman with the
39th Bombardment Group based on
Guam. He also won a purple heart for wounds during his service.
Acting career
Early roles, 1951-1959
After the war, he decided to pursue acting, not from love of it, but rather because he was impressed with the amount of money that he might be able to make. Bronson was a roommate of
Jack Klugman, another struggling actor at the time. Klugman later said of Bronson that he was good at ironing clothes.
Bronson's first movie role – an uncredited one – was as a sailor in
You're in the Navy Now in 1951. Other early screen appearances were in
Pat and Mike,
Miss Sadie Thompson and
House of Wax (as
Vincent Price's henchman Igor). In 1952, Bronson boxed in a ring with
Roy Rogers in Rogers'es show
Knockout.
In 1954, during the
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) proceedings, he changed his surname from Buchinsky to Bronson as Eastern European names sounded suspiciously. He took his inspiration from the Bronson Gate at
Paramount Studios, situated on the corner of
Melrose Avenue and Bronson Street.
Bronson made several appearances on television in the 1950s and 1960s, including leading roles in three episodes of
Alfred Hitchcock Presents:
And So Died Riabouchinska (1956),
There Was an Old Woman (1956), and
The Woman Who Wanted to Live (1962). He also starred alongside
Elizabeth Montgomery in
The Twilight Zone episode "
Two" (1961).
Many of his filmographies incorrectly state that he appeared in the 1958
Gary Cooper film
Ten North Frederick, which wasn't the case.
In 1958 he was first casted as the lead in the
Machine-Gun Kelly, a low-budget, albeit well received, gangster film.
Bronson also scored the lead in his own
ABC's detective series
Man With A Camera (from 1958 to 1960), where he portrayed Mike Kovac, a former combat photographer freelancing in New York City. Frequently, Kovac was involved in dangerous assignments for the
New York Police Department.
Success, 1960-1968
Charles Bronson gained attention in 1960 with his role in the
John Sturges'es smash-hit western
The Magnificent Seven (1960), where he played one of the seven gunfighters taking up the cause of the defenseless. Two years later, Sturges cast him for his another popular Hollywood production
The Great Escape as a claustrophobic
Polish prisoner of war nicknamed "The Tunnel King". As a side note, Bronson was really claustrophobic, because of his childhood work in a mine.
In 1961 he was nominated for
Emmy Award for his supporting role in an TV episode
Memory in White.
Again on the ABC, Bronson was noted in 1963 in the role of Linc, the stubborn wagonmaster in the TV western
The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, where he starred together with a twelve-year-old
Kurt Russell.
The
The Dirty Dozen (1967) starred Bronson as an Army
death row convict conscripted into a suicide mission. While it appears to be only a coincidence, Bronson's character had a penchant for "surviving" in this and other violent "buddy" pictures.
European roles, 1968-1973
Although he began his career in the United States, Bronson first made a serious name for himself in European films. He became quite famous on that continent, and was known by two nicknames: The
Italians called him "Il Brutto" ("The Ugly One") and to the
French he was known as a "monstre sacré" ("holy monster").
In 1968 he played in the
Once Upon a Time in the West epic. The director,
Sergio Leone, once called him "the greatest actor I ever worked with", and originally wanted Bronson for all three movies now known as the
Man with No Name trilogy. Bronson turned him down each time and the roles instead launched
Clint Eastwood to film stardom.
Even though he wasn't yet a headliner in America in 1970, he helped the French
Rider on the Rain to win a Hollywood's
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Next year, this overseas fame earned him a a special Golden Globe
Henrietta Award for "World Film Favorite - Male" together with
Sean Connery. This was the most prestitigious of few awards that he have ever received. At the time, the actor wondered if he was "too masculine" to ever become a star in the United States.
Death Wish series, 1974-1994
One of the actor's most memorable roles came at the age of over 50, in
Death Wish (1974), the most popular film of his long association with director
Michael Winner. He played
Paul Kersey, a successful New York
architect, a liberal until his wife (played by
Hope Lange) is murdered and his daughter raped. Kersey becomes a crime-fighting
vigilante by night - a highly controversial role, as his executions were cheered by crime-weary audiences. After the famous 1984 case of
Bernhard Goetz, Bronson recommended that people not imitate his character. This successful movie spawned sequels over the next 20 years, in which Bronson also starred. His great nephew, Justin Bronson, was scheduled to star in a remake of Death Wish in 2008.
For Walter Hill's
Hard Times (1975), he played a Depression-era street fighter making his living in illegal bare-knuckled matches in Louisiana.
He was considered to play the role of
Snake Plissken in
Escape from New York (1981), but director
John Carpenter thought he was too tough looking and too old for the part, and decided to cast
Kurt Russell instead. Between the 1976 and 1994, Bronson starred in numerous films made by smaller production companies, most notably
Cannon Films. Many of them were directed by
J. Lee Thompson, a cooperation that Bronson valued.
Ultra-violent films such as
The Evil That Men Do and
10 To Midnight were blasted by critics, but provided him with good-paying work throughout the 80s. Bronson's last starring role in a theatrically released film was 1994's .
Charles Bronson became very popular in Japan in the early 1990's with the bushy eyebrowed TV critic Yodogawa Nagaharu ("Sayonara, sayonara, sayonara!") hosting 1-2 seasons of his films every year on NTV, one of the main TV channels in Japan.
Personal Life
Bronson was married to British actress
Jill Ireland from 1968 until her death from
breast cancer at age 54 in 1990. He had met her when she was married to British actor
David McCallum. At the time, Bronson (who shared the screen with McCallum in
The Great Escape) reportedly told him, "I'm going to marry your wife." Two years later, Bronson did just that. She was his second wife.
Death
On
August 30,
2003 Bronson died of
pneumonia while suffering from
Alzheimer's disease at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in
Los Angeles, CA. He had been in poor health since undergoing
hip replacement surgery in August 1998. He is buried in
Brownsville, Vermont, near his home of thirty years in
West Windsor.
A tribute to him was at the end of
Kill Bill: Volume 2 credits, which say "R.I.P. Charles Bronson".
Legacy in Pop Culture
Complete filmography
You're in the Navy Now (1951) (uncredited)
The People Against O'Hara (1951) (uncredited)
The Mob (1951) (uncredited)
The Marrying Kind (1952) (uncredited)
My Six Convicts (1952) (uncredited)
Pat and Mike (1952) (as Charles Buchinsky)
Red Skies of Montana (1952) (uncredited)
Diplomatic Courier (1952) (uncredited)
Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952) (uncredited)
The Clown (1952) (uncredited)
Battle Zone (1952) (uncredited)
Off Limits (1953) (uncredited)
Torpedo Alley (1953) (uncredited)
House of Wax (1953) (as Charles Buchinsky)
Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) (as Charles Buchinsky)
Crime Wave (1954) (as Charles Buchinsky)
Tennessee Champ (1954) (as Charles Buchinsky)
Riding Shotgun (1954) (as Charles Buchinsky)
Apache (1954) (as Charles Buchinsky)
Vera Cruz (1954) (as Charles Buchinsky)
Drumbeat (1954)
Big House USA (1955)
Target Zero (1955)
Jubal (1956)
Run of the Arrow (1957)
Gang War (1958)
Machine-Gun Kelly (1958)
Showdown At Boot Hill (1958)
When Hell Broke Loose (1958)
Never So Few (1959)
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Master of the World (1961)
A Thunder of Drums (1961)
X-15 (1961)
Kid Galahad (1962)
The Great Escape (1963)
4 for Texas (1963)
Battle of the Bulge (1965)
The Sandpiper (1965)
This Property Is Condemned (1966)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Guns for San Sebastian (1967)
Honor Among Thieves (1968)
Villa Rides (1968)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Lola (1969)
Le Passager de la Pluie (1969)
Twinky (1969)
You can't Win 'em All (1970)
Violent City (1970)
Cold Sweat (1970)
Someone Behind the Door (1971)
Red Sun (1971)
Chato's Land (1971)
The Valachi Papers (1972)
The Mechanic (1972)
The Stone Killer (1973)
Chino (1973)
Mr. Majestyk (1974)
Death Wish (1974)
Breakout (1975)
Breakheart Pass (1975)
Hard Times (1975)
From Noon Till Three (1975)
St. Ives (1976)
Raid On Entebbe (1976)
Telefon (1977)
The White Buffalo (1977)
Love and Bullets (1978)
Caboblanco (1979)
Borderline (1980)
Death Hunt (1981)
Death Wish II (1982)
10 to Midnight (1983)
The Evil That Men Do (1984)
Death Wish 3 (1985)
Act of Vengeance (1985) (TV)
Murphy's Law (1986)
Assassination (1987)
(1987)
Messenger of Death (1988)
(1988)
The Indian Runner (1991)
(1994)
TV movies
This Rugged Land (1962)
Guns of Diablo (1964)
Luke and The Tenderfoot (1965)
The Meanest Men in the West (1967)
The Bull of the West (1971)
Raid On Entebbe (1976)
Act of Vengeance (1985)
Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (1991)
Donato and Daughter (1993)
The Sea Wolf (1993)
A Family of Cops (1995)
Breach of Faith: A Family of Cops 2 (1997)
Family of Cops 3 (1999)Further Information
Get more info on 'Charles Bronson'.
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