The former Pennsylvania coal miner had become associated with violent, low-budget productions that dominated his later career. Various jokes and comedy skits about his roles in the 1980s overlooked a previous reign as one of the highest-grossing stars in cinema history.
Bronson and His Dire Beginnings
He was born Charles Dennis Buchinsky on November 3, 1921, in the mining town of Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, 65 miles east of Pittsburgh. Buchinsky was the 11th of 15 children born into a Lithuanian family who struggled through the Great Depression.
Bronson’s father died when he was just ten years old. The remaining family lived in a cramped, rickety house and slept in shifts, with Charles at one point needing to wear hand-me-downs from an elder sister. He attended elementary school in a girl’s dress, reportedly with his head shaved to avoid problems with lice.
After graduating high school, Buchinsky worked in the mines and earned about one dollar for each ton of coal produced. He enlisted in the U. S. Army Air Force when the Second World War intensified, becoming a tailgunner in the Pacific arena. He received a Purple Heart for shoulder wounds in combat and was discharged in 1946.
Buchinsky entered military service with little knowledge of the world. He was said to be the first high school graduate in his immediate family and spoke no English as a child (though he knew Lithuanian, Russian, and Greek by adulthood). After his travels during the war, Buchinsky hoped to find a solid career and leave behind his impoverished background.
Bronson And The Actor’s Craft
Following his discharge, Buchinsky used the American GI Bill to study art in Philadelphia. He joined a local acting troupe to provide set designs, but eventually filled minor roles on the stage. Buchinsky later moved to the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he improved his diction and won the notice of studio recruiters. He was not particularly excited by the craft, but was impressed by salaries that leading actors brought in.
Buchinsky’s first movie appearance came as an uncredited sailor in You’re in the Navy Now (1951) with Gary Cooper. His tough persona helped him to land other bit roles in My Six Convicts (1952, with Millard Mitchell), the 3-D horror extravaganza House of Wax (1953, with Vincent Price), and W. Somerset Maugham’s Miss Sadie Thompson (1953, with Rita Hayworth). He also made a steady run of television appearances through the 1950s, including with Red Skelton and Roy Rogers.
Sometime in 1954, Buchinsky changed his performance name to Bronson, perhaps taken from the Bronson Gate at Paramount Pictures. ‘Buchinsky,’ which is clearly Eastern European, seemed to deter studios from casting him while anti-Communist hearings raged in Washington. His last film appearance as Buchinsky was made in Vera Cruz, a western starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster.
Bronson’s Turning Point
Bronson seemed to make career headway in 1958 when he led the Roger Corman-directed gangster film Machine-Gun Kelly and the ABC detective series Man With a Camera, though the latter was a shameless plug for General Electric's photography line. He also landed supporting roles in The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), and The Dirty Dozen (1967), but was still not a headliner.
This would soon change after French actor Alain Delon remembered Bronson in Machine-Gun Kelly while looking for a co-star. The Pennsylvania native was about to make a change of scenery that would transform his entire life.
Sources
'Charles Bronson.' IMDB web site, 1990-2009.
'Cinema: Then Came Bronson...' New York, NY: Time Magazine, January 9, 1978 [via Internet].
Davidson, Bill. 'The American Discovery of Charles Bronson.' Lakeland, FL: The Ledger, September 22, 1974 [via Internet].
Exshaw, John. 'Obituary: Charles Bronson: 'Tough guy' actor and epitome of the strong, silent avenger.' London, England: The Independent, September 2, 2003 [via Internet].
'Obituary: Charles Bronson.' London, England: BBC News, September 1, 2003 [via Internet].
Severo, Richard. 'Charles Bronson, 81, Dies; Muscular Movie Tough Guy.' New York, NY: The New York Times, September 1, 2003 [via Internet, with corrections].
Winner, Michael. Winner Takes All. London, England: Robson Books, 2004.
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