The archetypal screen tough guy with weatherbeaten features - one film critic described his rugged looks as "a Clark Gable who had been left out in the sun too long" - Charles Bronson was born Charles Buchinski, one of 14 children of struggling Polish immigrant parents in Pennsylvania (his father was a coal miner). He completed high school and joined his father in the mines (an experience that resulted in a lifetime fear of being in enclosed spaces) and then served in WW II. After his return from the war, Bronson used the GI Bill to study art (a passion he had for the rest of his life), then enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. One of his teachers was impressed with the young man and recommended him to director Henry Hathaway, resulting in Bronson making his film debut in U.S.S. Teakettle. He appeared on screen often early in his career, though often uncredited. However, he made an impact on audiences as the evil assistant to Vincent Price in the 3-D thriller House of Wax. His sinewy yet muscular physique got him cast in action-type roles, often without a shirt to highlight his manly frame. He received positive notices from critics for his performances in Vera Cruz, Target Zero and Run of the Arrow. Indie director Roger Corman cast him as the lead in his well-received low-budget gangster flick Machine-Gun Kelly, then Bronson scored the lead in his own TV series, Man with a Camera. The 1960s proved to be the era in which Bronson made his reputation as a man of few words but much action. Director John Sturges cast him as half Irish/half Mexican gunslinger Bernardo O'Reilly in the smash hit western The Magnificent Seven, and hired him again as tunnel rat Danny Velinski for the WWII POW epic The Great Escape. Several more strong roles followed, then once again Bronson was back in military uniform, alongside Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in the testosterone-filled The Dirty Dozen. European audiences had taken a shine to his minimalist acting style, and he headed to the Continent to star in several action-oriented films, including Guns for San Sebastian (aka "Guns for San Sebastian"), the cult western Once Upon a Time in the West (aka "Once Upon a Time in The West"), Rider on the Rain (aka "Rider On The Rain") and, in one of the quirkier examples of international casting, alongside Japansese screen legend Toshirô Mifune in the western Red Sun (aka "Red Sun"). American audiences were by now keen to see Bronson back on US soil, and he returned triumphantly in the early 1970s to take the lead in more hard-edged crime and western dramas, including The Valachi Papers and the revenge western Chato's Land. Bronson then hooked up with British director Michael Winner to star in several highly successful urban crime thrillers, including The Mechanic and The Stone Killer. However, the film that proved to be a breakthrough for both Bronson and Winner came in 1974 with the release of the controversial Death Wish. The US was at the time in the midst of rising street crime, and audiences flocked to see a story about a mild-mannered architect who seeks revenge for the murder of his wife and rape of his daughter by gunning down hoods, rapists and killers on the streets of New York City. So popular was the film that it spawned four (inferior) sequels over the next 20 years.

Action fans could not get enough of tough guy Bronson, and he appeared in what many fans, and critics, consider his best role - as Depression-era streetfighter Chaney alongside James Coburn in the superb Hard Times. That was followed by the somewhat slow-paced but beautifully photographed western Breakheart Pass (with wife Jill Ireland), the light-hearted romp From Noon Till Three, and as Soviet agent Grigori Borsov in director Don Siegel's Cold War thriller Telefon. Bronson remained busy throughout the 1980s, with most of his films taking a more violent tone, and he was pitched as an avenging angel eradicating evildoers in films like 10 to Midnight, The Evil That Men Do, Assassination and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. Bronson jolted many critics with his forceful work as murdered United Mine Workers leader Jock Yablonski in the TV movie Act of Vengeance, gave a very interesting performance in the Sean Penn-directed The Indian Runner, and surprised everyone with his appearance as compassionate newspaper editor Francis Church in the family film Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus.

Bronson's final film roles were as police commissioner Paul Fein in a well-received trio of crime/drama TV movies Family of Cops, Breach of Faith: Family of Cops II and Family of Cops III: Under Suspicion. Unfortunately, ill health began to take its toll; he suffered from Alzheimers disease for the last few years of his life, and finally passed away from pneumonia at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in August 2003. Bronson was a true icon of international cinema; critics had few good things to say about his films, but he remained a fan favorite in both the US and abroad for 50 years, a claim few other film legends can make.


10 to Midnight (1983): $2,000,000
St. Ives (1976): $1,000,000
Death Wish (1974): $1,000,000
Valdez, il mezzosangue (1973): $1,000,000
The Stone Killer (1973): $1,000,000
Machine-Gun Kelly (1958): $5,000

Shared a room with Jack Klugman in a New York boarding house in the 1940s. Perhaps the biggest late bloomer in Hollywood history, he did not get the marquee treatment he deserved until his late 40s. He was already 53 when Death Wish (1974) premiered. Spoofed in an episode of "The Simpsons" (1989) in which the Simpson family mistakenly travels to Bronson, Missouri, instead of Branson. In Bronson, such lines of dialogue as these are spoken by its citizens: "No dice.", "This ain't ovah." Actor Dick Van Dyke received a lemon cake every Christmas from Bronson, who lived nearby in Malibu for 16 years In 1954 on the Mexican set of Vera Cruz (1954), he and fellow cast member Ernest Borgnine--who were playing American gunfighters involved in the Mexican fight against the French--had some spare time on their hands and decided to go to a nearby town for cigarettes. They saddled up in costume, sidearms and all, and began riding to town. On the way they were spotted by a truck full of Mexican "federales"--national police--who mistook them for bandits and held them at gunpoint until their identities could be verified. "I am not a Casper Milquetoast," Bronson told The Washington Post in 1985, recalling the time he was visiting Rome and felt someone stick a gun in his side. "A guy in broken English asked me for money. I said, 'You give ME money.' He turned around and walked away." Was by all accounts a very quiet and introspective collaborator, often sitting in a corner for much of a shoot and listening to a director's instructions and not saying a word until cameras were rolling. He grew privately frustrated by the declining quality and range of roles over his career, being pigeonholed as a violent vigilante after the commercial success of Death Wish (1974). His own favorite of his "vigilante" movies was C'era una volta il West (1968) (aka Once Upon a Time in the West). His father died when he was 10, and at 16 he followed his brothers into the mines to support the family. He was paid $1 per ton of coal and volunteered for perilous jobs because the pay was better. Called West Windsor, Vermont his home for more than three decades (Bronson Farm), and was buried in nearby Brownsville Cemetery, near the foot of Mt. Ascutney. With his death on August 30, 2003, Robert Vaughn and Eli Wallach are the only two of the seven main stars of the The Magnificent Seven (1960) who are still alive as of November 2005. Was introduced to his second wife, Jill Ireland, by her then-husband David McCallum during the filming of The Great Escape (1963). Owned homes in Europe, including Lithuania and Greece. The voice of the sarcastic store clerk in "The Simpsons" (1989) is based on him. The term "Charles Bronson" is frequently uttered in Reservoir Dogs (1992) in reference to a hard-man. Advertised Mandom hair oil. In the latter part of his career, he worked predominantly with The Guns of Navarone (1961) director J. Lee Thompson. They made nine films together in just over a decade between 1977 and 1989: 10 to Midnight (1983), Caboblanco (1980), Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987), The Evil That Men Do (1984), Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989), Messenger of Death (1988), Murphy's Law (1986), St. Ives (1976) and The White Buffalo (1977). Made six films with director Michael Winner: Chato's Land (1972), The Mechanic (1972), The Stone Killer (1973), Death Wish (1974), Death Wish II (1982) and Death Wish 3 (1985). Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2000 after suffering ill health for the previous two years. The Japanese manga artist Buronson, famed for the "Fist of the Northstar" manga, took the name in honor of Bronson (his real name is Yoshiyuki Okamura) and sports a similar mustache. Only actor to star in both The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Dirty Dozen (1967). He was considered for the role of Snake Plissken in Escape from New York (1981), but director John Carpenter felt Bronson was too old and too tough, and cast Kurt Russell instead. He was considered for Gene Hackman's Oscar-winning role in The French Connection (1971). Tennessee Williams wanted him to play the general in his play "The Red Devil Battery Sign" in 1975, but he wasn't interested. Not to be confused with the violent British criminal of the same name currently (2009) in the news. Left an estate worth $48 million including an $8 million house in Malibu as well as a $4.8 million beach house and a ranch in Vermont.