Charles Bronson Biography


(What's this?) What is the EasyEdit button? This website gets better when people like you add to it. Just click the EasyEdit button to start. (help)
c
1921 - 2003
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson


A former Pennsylvanicoal miner who found fame with The Magnificent Seven. It was his starring role in the Death Wish films that made him a hard man heroHowever, he served abroad during World War II, and returned determined to pursue a career in the arts. He began working backstage for a Philadelphia theatre company and, after a few small roles, fell in love with acting.

After a few scattered acting jobs in New York, Bronson enrolled in the Pasadena Playhouse. By 1951, he was playing bit parts in films such as ‘You're in the Navy Now’ and ‘The Clown’. His first role of importance was as Igor in ‘House of Wax’.

He was billed as Charles Bronson for the first time in ‘Drum Beat’, although he was still often stereotyped as a hoodlum or a convict. His first starring role was in 1958's ‘Gang War’, but he first achieved major recognition for ‘Machine Gun Kelly’ the same year.

Bronson achieved his first fan-following with the TV series, ‘Man With a Camera’, and appeared as one of 'The Magnificent Seven' in 1960. However, his next few roles tend tended to fit the mould of ‘supporting villain’ and, in 1968, he moved to Europe, hoping to find bigger and better opportunities.

After success in such films as ‘Guns for San Sebastian’, ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’, and ‘Cold Sweat’, Bronson returned to Hollywood, a full-fledged star at last. His most successful films of the 1970s were ‘Death Wish’ and its sequels, a series of brutal "vigilante" pictures.

In many of his 1970s films, Bronson co-starred with his second wife, Jill Ireland. Unfortunately she lost her fight against cancer in 1990.

He appeared in ‘The Indian Runner’ in 1991 and ‘Death Wish 5: The Face of Death’ in 1994, but has since done mostly television work.

He died from pneumonia at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on 30 August 2003.


Early Roles 1951 - 1959


Bronson`first film role - an uncredited one - was as a sailor in
You`re in the Navy Now

Screen appearances were in Pat and Mike, Miss Sadie, Thompson and House of Wax as Vincent Price`s henchman Igor.

1952
Bronson boxed in a ring with Roy Rogers in Rogers`show Knockout. He also appeared on the "Red Skelton Show" as a boxer in a skit with Red as his character of "Cauliflower" McPugg.

1954
He made a strong impact in Drumbeat supporting Alan Ladd. He played a murderous Apache warrior, Captain Jack, who enjoys wearing the tunics of soldiers who he has killed. Eventually captured by Ladd and sent to the gallows, Jack dies as he has always lived, fearlessly.

During the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) proceedings, he changed his surname from Buchinsky to Bronson as Eastern European names sounded suspicious in an era of anti-Soviet sentiment. He to his inspiration from the Bronson Gate at Paramount Studios, situated on the corner of Melrose Avenue and Bronson Street.


1960`s
Charles Bronson gained attention in 1960 with his role in John Sturges' western The Magnificent Seven, where he played one of seven gunfighters taking up the cause of the defenseless, which was based on Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Two years later, Sturges cast him for another popular Hollywood production The Great Escape as a claustrophobic Polish prisoner of war nicknamed "The Tunnel King" (coincidentally, Bronson was really claustrophobic because of his childhood work in a mine).


1962
Bronson in the role of Lew Nyack, a veteran boxing trainer who helped Walter Gulick (Elvis Presley) buff up his skills for the big fight with Sugarboy Romero in the movie, "Kid Galahad" (a remake of a 1937 film with Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart in those roles).



1963
Bronson co-starred with Richard Egan in the NBC Western series Empire, set on a New Mexico ranch. In the 1963–1964 season he portrayed Linc, the stubborn wagonmaster in the ABC series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, where he starred together with Dan O'Herlihy and then twelve-year-old Kurt Russell. In the 1965-1966 season, he guest starred in an episode of The Legend of Jesse James, starring Christopher Jones in the title role.


European Roles:
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").

1968
He starred as Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West. The director, Sergio Leone, once called him "the greatest actor I ever worked with", and had wanted to cast Bronson for the lead in all three of his previous westerns, now known as the Dollars trilogy. Bronson turned him down each time and the roles instead launched Clint Eastwood to film stardom.

Even though he was not yet a headliner in America in 1970, he helped the French film Rider on the Rain win a Hollywood Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The following year, this overseas fame earned him a special Golden Globe Henrietta Award for "World Film Favorite - Male" together with Sean Connery. This was the most prestigious of the few awards he ever received. At the time, the actor wondered if he was "too masculine" to ever become a star in the United States.




1974–1994
One of Bronson's most memorable roles came when he was over the age of 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. When his wife (played by Hope Lange) is murdered and his daughter raped, Kersey becomes a crime-fighting vigilante by night. It was 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, but the film has not yet seen the light of day.

Career Highlights
Non-acting careers:
Big break: Death Wish, Once upon a time in the West
Defining characters:
Best movies:
Best TV:
Stage credits:
Endorsements:
Other notable appearances/credits:
  • The Apache Kid
  • Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 1. And So Died Riabouchinska (1956), 2. There Was an Old Woman (1956), 3. The Woman Who Wanted to Live (1962).
  • The Twilight Zon: Episode "Two"
  • Gunsmoke: 1956 - As a Killer named Crego
  • Roger Corman's Machine-Gun Kelly, a low-budget, though well received, gangster film.
  • TV episode with the title Memory in White 1961
  • The Dirty Dozen 1967
Top awards:
Other:

Charles Bronson Relationships
Family:
  • Kim Weeks 22 December 1988 - 30 August (his Death)
  • Jill Ireland 5 October 1968 - 18 May (her Death) 1 Daughter
  • Harriet Tendler 1949 - 1967 Divorced : 2 Children
Dated:
  • Susan Denberg
  • Yvonne Craig
Romance(s):
Frequent collaborator(s):
Other affiliations:

Fun Facts About Charles Bronson
  • For Walter Hill's Hard Times (1975), he starred as a Depression-era street fighter making his living in illegal bare-knuckled matches in Louisiana, earning good reviews.

  • Charles Bronson's highest box-office was 4th in 1975, beaten only by Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand and Al Pacino.

    • 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. In the years between 1976 and 1994, Bronson commanded high salaries to star in numerous films made by smaller production companies, most notably Cannon Films. Many of them were directed by J. Lee Thompson, a collaborative relationship that Bronson enjoyed and actively pursued, reportedly because Thompson worked quickly and efficiently. Thompson's ultra-violent films such as The Evil That Men Do and 10 To Midnight were blasted by critics, but provided Bronson with well-paid work throughout the '80s. Bronson's last starring role in a theatrically released film was 1994's Death Wish V: The Face of Death.

  • Charles Bronson became very popular in Japan in the early 1990`s with the bushy eyebrowed TV critic Nagaharu Yodogawa ("Sayonara, sayonara, sayonara!") Yodogawahosting 1-2 seasons of his films every year on NTV, one of the main TV channels in Japan.

  • Bronson also scored the lead in his own ABC's detective series Man with a Camera (from 1958 to 1960), in which 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.

  • For 16 years actor Dick Van Dyke would receive a lemon cake every Christmas from Bronson, who lived nearby in Malibu.

  • His father died when he was 10, and at 16 he followed his brothers into the mines to support his family. He got paid $1 per ton of coal and volunteered for perilous jobs because the pay was better.

  • When responding to critics' complaints, he said: "We don't make movies for critics, since they don't pay to see them anyhow."

  • He was a very quiet and introspective collaborator, often sitting in a corner for much of a shoot, and listening to a director's instructions, not saying a word until the cameras started rolling.
  • Bronson was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds received in combat during World War II
  • Bronson was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943 and served as a tail gunner on board a B-29 bomber.
  • Bronson and fellow actor Ernest Borgine, in costume as Mexican bandits, were reportedly detained and questioned by Mexican police while on their way to work on the Film Vera Cruz in 1954


Charles Bronson's Awards & Honors
Year
Award
Category/Recipient(s)
Result
1961
Emmy
Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor or Actress in a Single Program
for:
  • "General Electric Theater" (1953)
For episode "Memory in White".
Nominated
1970
Golden Laurel
Male Supporting Performance
for:
  • C'era una volta il West (1968)
3rdPlace
1972
Henriette Award
World Film Favorite - Male
Together with Sean Connery.
Won
1996
Golden Boot


1980
Star on the Walk of FameMotion Picture
At 6901 Hollywood Blvd.


Charles Bronson elsewhere on flixster and on web: