CLAIM TO TOUGH GUY FAME:
Usually cast as cops, cowboys, soldiers, and vigilantes, Bronson embodied the Tough Guy archetype, first in memorable supporting roles, then as a breakout star in the early 1970s, where he specialized in playing anti-heroes in revenge-based plots.
Despite his lack of traditional leading-man looks, at his peak, he was the most famous and highest-paid movie star in the world.
WAS HE TOUGH IN REAL LIFE?
Oh for sure! One of fifteen children born to Lithuanian immigrants in Pennsylvania, he grew up hard and hungry in a family so poor that he had nothing to wear to school but a hand-me-down dress from his sister. You better believe that forced him to toughen up at an early age!
When he was just 10, his father died, and young Charles went to work in the coal mines full-time for $1 a week. Somehow, despite working grueling, dangerous double shifts, he found time for his studies and became the first member of his family to graduate high school.
The young man found an escape from the mines by enlisting in the Air Force in the thick of World War II. Deployed to the Pacific theater, he served as a gunner on a B-29 bomber and flew 25 missions and earned a Purple Heart after being wounded in combat.
A combat veteran has instant Tough-Guy cred, but World War II just has a certain mystique about it that gives those who served extra bonus Tough Guy points!
NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
In the early 1970s, Bronson became the first movie star to regularly command $1 million per role.
Before conquering Hollywood, Bronson starred in many European film productions, gaining fame and recognition abroad. Thanks to all the fans he had made overseas, after he broke out in America, he became one of the first big “international” stars with a massive following around the globe.
FUN TOUGH GUY FACTS:
Following his discharge from the Air Force, Bronson barely scraped by working various odd jobs. One day while hustling out on the famed Atlantic City boardwalk, he met a troupe of stage actors. Desperate for work, he offered to paint their scenery for a few bucks, and after some convincing, they agreed.
Thus Bronson, like fellow Tough Guy Lee Marvin, fell into his true calling completely by accident, catching the acting bug and eventually graduating from set painter to full-fledged member of the troupe. Seeing professional acting as an opportunity to earn a decent wage, he moved to Hollywood in 1950 to take acting classes and pursue film roles. Before long, his hardened disposition and natural talent began earning him Tough Guy roles, and he never looked back.
Although credited at first by his birth name Charles Buchinsky, hysteria created by the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee was sweeping through the entertainment industry, and the witch-hunt for secret communists was leading to an alarming number of actors, writers, and directors being blacklisted from working in Hollywood.
Although uninvolved with the communist party, Buchinsky worried that his conspicuously Eastern-European last name would draw attention and make him a target of investigation. Thus, in 1954, he began working under his new legal name Charles Bronson, which you have to admit, is much tougher-sounding than Buchinsky, and a legend was born!
KEY FILMS:
The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), The Dirty Dozen (1967), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), The Mechanic (1972), Death Wish (1974)