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Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky,
November 3, 1921 – August 30, 2003) was an American actor of "tough
guy" roles. In most of his roles he starred as a police detective, a
western gunfighter, vigilante, boxer or a Mafia hit man.
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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 one
of 15 children born to a Lithuanian immigrant father of Lipka Tatar
ancestry, and a Lithuanian-American mother.
Bronson's father died when he was only 10, and he went down to the
coal mines like his older brothers until he was drafted. He earned $1
per ton of coal mined. His family was so poor that, at one time, he
had reportedly been forced to wear his sister's dress to school
because he had no other clothes. This story has been repeated in
Celebrity Setbacks:
800 Stars who Overcame the Odds by Ed Lucaire and in an
edition of Ripley's Believe It or Not!.
In 1943, Bronson joined the United States Army Air Forces and served
in the Pacific theater as a B-29 Superfortress tail-gunner. Assigned
to the 61st Bomb Squadron of the 39th Bomb Group of the Twentieth Air
Force, he flew bombing missions to Japan from North Field, Guam.
After the war he decided to pursue acting, not from any love of the
subject, but rather because he was impressed with the amount of money
that he could potentially make in the business. Bronson was a roommate
with Jack Klugman, another struggling actor at the time. Klugman later
said of Bronson that he was good at ironing clothes. His first screen
appearance, which was uncredited, was as a sailor in You're in the
Navy Now in 1951.
During the McCarthy hearings he changed his surname to Bronson as
Slavic-sounding names were suspect. He took his inspiration from the
Bronson Gate at Paramount Studios, situated on the corner of Melrose
Ave. and Bronson St. One of his earliest screen appearances was as
Vincent Price's henchman in the 1953 horror classic House of Wax.
Bronson made several appearances on television in the 1950s and 1960s,
including three leading roles on Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the
episodes "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).
Charles Bronson (1973).From 1958 to 1960, Bronson starred in the ABC
detective series Man With A Camera. Bronson portrayed 'Mike Kovac', a
former combat photographer free-lancing in New York City. Frequently,
Kovac was involved in assignments for the Police Department, which
commonly put him in danger. Also on ABC, Bronson gained attention in
1963 in the role of Linc, the stubborn wagonmaster in the TV western
The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, which also starred twelve-year-old
Kurt Russell.
Although he began his career in the United States, Bronson first made
a serious name for himself acting 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 "le sacré monstre" ("holy monster"). Even though he was not yet a
headliner in America, this overseas fame earned him a 1971 Golden
Globe as the "Most Popular Actor in the World."
Bronson's most famous films include The Great Escape (1963), in which
he played Danny Velinski, a Polish prisoner of war nicknamed "The
Tunnel King", and The Dirty Dozen, (1967) in which he played an Army
death row convict conscripted into a World War II suicide mission.
In the westerns The Magnificent Seven (1960) and the Sergio Leone epic
Once Upon a Time in the West, (1968) he played heroic gunfighters,
taking up the cause of the defenseless. Sergio Leone once called him
"the greatest actor I ever worked with." Leone had wanted Bronson for
all three of what became known as the "Man with No Name" trilogy, but
Bronson turned him down each time. In Hard Times (1975), he played a
street fighter making his living in illegal boxing matches in
Louisiana.
He is also remembered for Death Wish (1974) which spawned several
sequels (in which he also starred). In the Death Wish series he played
Paul Kersey, a successful New York architect, a liberal until his wife
(played by Hope Lange) was murdered and his daughter raped. Kersey
became 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.
During the 1980s, he made numerous films with smaller production
companies, most notably Cannon Films. 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 Death Wish V:
The Face of Death.
Bronson was married to British actress Jill Ireland from 1968 until
her death from breast cancer at age 54 in 1990. He met her when she
was still 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 marry her. 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. 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.
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