Overview (5)

Mini Bio (1)

Spouse (3)

Trade Mark (4)

Frequently played violent characters



Distinctive, gravelly voice



Rough facial features



Long thin moustache



Trivia (70)



Shared a room with Jack Klugman in a New York boarding house in the 1940s.



He had two children with his first wife, Tony and Suzanne. He then married Jill Ireland , who had two sons with her first husband, David McCallum . One adopted son (Jason) died of an accidental drug overdose in 1989. He and Ireland had a daughter named Zuleika.



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 Ein Mann sieht rot (1974) premiered.

The name Bronson is said to be taken from the "Bronson Gate" at Paramount Studios, at the north end of Bronson Avenue.





The voice of the sarcastic store clerk on Die Simpsons (1989) is based on him.

Changed his stage name in the early 1950s in the midst of the McCarthy "Red Scare" at the suggestion of his agent, who was fearful that his last name (Buchinsky) would damage his career.



In 1949 he moved to California, where he signed up for acting lessons at the Pasadena Playhouse





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.

Was drafted into the army in 1943 and assigned to the Air Corps. At first he was a truck driver, but was later trained as a bomber tail gunner and assigned to a B-29. He flew 25 missions and received, among other decorations, a Purple Heart for wounds incurred in battle.



"I am not a Casper Milquetoast," he 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.".





John Huston once summed him up as "a grenade with the pin pulled".



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. Don Siegel , who directed him in Telefon (1977), and Tom Gries , who directed him in Nevada Pass (1975), both commented on how surprised they were to discover how thoroughly and completely prepared Bronson was when he came to work, as it didn't seem to fit his "laid-back", taciturn image.



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 Ein Mann sieht rot (1974). His own favorite of his "vigilante" movies was Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod (1968).

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, VT, his home for more than three decades (Bronson Farm), and was buried in nearby Brownsville Cemetery, near the foot of Mt. Ascutney.





With Bronson's death on August 30, 2003, Robert Vaughn became the last surviving actor to have played one of the title characters in Die glorreichen Sieben (1960). Vaughn died on November 11, 2016 at the age of 83.

Spoke fluent Russian, Lithuanian and Greek.



Owned homes in Europe, including Lithuania and Greece.



Had hip replacement surgery in August 1998.





He was considered for the lead role in Conan, der Barbar (1982).



The term "Charles Bronson" is frequently uttered in Reservoir Dogs - Wilde Hunde (1992) in reference to a "tough guy".



He was very active in raising funds for the John Wayne Cancer Institute.



Capable of essaying a variety of types, from Russian to American Indian, from homicidal villain to tight-lipped hero, Bronson suddenly became a star at the age of 53. Following the success of Ein Mann sieht rot (1974) he repeated, with little variation, his role as a vengeful urban vigilante.



His parents were from Lithuania, where his father was a coal miner, and he grew up in a western Pennsylvania coal-mining town. Like all the men in his family he worked in the mines, but hated it and used a variety of means to escape it (including the military and, eventually, acting). His expertise with tunneling and working underground turned out to be quite helpful when making Gesprengte Ketten (1963) in the role of "Tunnel King" Velinski. However, even though the "tunnel" he was working in was a cutaway set, he could only stay in it for a few minutes at a time before he had to get up and leave. As a boy working in the mines, he was caught in a cave-in and almost died before he was finally rescued. Ever since that time he had had a deathly fear of enclosed spaces.

In the 1990s a lady whom he'd never met left him her estate worth well over a million dollars. She was a big fan of his. Her family sued and he ended up settling with them out of court.



Retired from acting after undergoing hip replacement surgery in 1998.





Japanese manga artist Buronson , famed for his "Fist of the Northstar" manga, took the name in honor of Bronson (his real name is Yoshiyuki Okamura) and sports a similar mustache.



He and wife Jill Ireland adopted Katrina Holden Bronson after her mother Hilary Holden died in 1983.

Growing up without much money for newer clothes, as a boy he often wore his older sister's hand-me-downs.





He was considered for the role of Snake Plissken in Die Klapperschlange (1981), but director John Carpenter felt Bronson was too old and too tough, and cast Kurt Russell instead.



Tested and read for Christopher Reeve 's role in Superman (1978).

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 48-50. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.





Tennessee Williams wanted him to play the general in his play "The Red Devil Battery Sign" in 1975, but he wasn't interested.

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.





Awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday, December 10, 1980. Bronson and wife Jill Ireland attended the ceremony.

Was one of the first big stars to notice the emerging "new media" that was arriving--video and laserdisc--and had a clause put in all his contracts that sales from these new formats should be included in his royalties.





Once told Roger Ebert that getting drafted into World War II was one of the best things that happened to him. For the first time in his life he was well fed and well dressed, and it afforded him the opportunity to improve his English.

Although born in Pennsylvania, Bronson grew up speaking Russian and Lithuanian as his first language (his father was an immigrant, and his mother was the daughter of immigrants). He did not become truly fluent in English until he served in the military during World War II.



Was a successful artist and painter. He once had an "anonymous" showing of his artwork at a gallery in California (under his birth name of Buchinsky), and every piece of art sold within two weeks.





Was once considered to star in a film to be directed by Sam Peckinpah (in the latter part of his career) but he refused. His reason was "I ain't working with no drunk".

A heavy smoker for most of his life, he suffered from severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in later years.



When he first signed with his long time agent Paul Kohner, he told Kohner that if he made him a star, he'd buy him a Rolls-Royce. True to his word, when Bronson made it big he delivered a brand-new Rolls-Royce to the Kohner house.





According to director Michael Winner , Bronson had a considerable amount of plastic surgery in the 1980s.

In 1943 he enlisted in the US Army Air Force and served in the 760th Flexible Gunnery Training Squadron. In 1945 he was a gunner on a Boeing B-29 Superfortress with the Guam-based 61st Bombardment Squadron of the 39th Bombardment Group, which conducted combat missions against the Japanese home islands. He flew 25 missions and received a Purple Heart for wounds received in battle.





He rarely granted interviews, or commented on his own films. However, he plainly stated his unhappiness with Death Wish 3 - Die Rächer von New York (1985) at least a few times, and was especially angered when he discovered that Michael Winner filmed extremely gory shots with extras (as nameless thugs) when he was off-set.



He was considered for the role of John McClane in Stirb langsam (1988) but was under contract with The Cannon Group, which refused to loan him out.



He was originally considered for Lee Marvin 's role in Delta Force (1986). This turned out to be Marvin's final role.



He turned down the role of the titular character's father in Billy Madison - Ein Chaot zum Verlieben (1995).



He turned down the role of Pasquinel in Colorado Saga (1978).



He was originally offered the role of Woodrow Call in Der Ruf des Adlers (1989), but turned it down.



His personal handgun was a Wildey .475 Magnum hand cannon. He suggested its use in Death Wish 3 - Die Rächer von New York (1985).



He was considered for James Coburn 's role in Firepower (1979). Rumor had it that Bronson turned the film down because the producers had refused to write in a role for his wife, Jill Ireland

He learned to speak English when he was a teenager; before that, he spoke Lithuanian and Russian.





In two different movies he played a character who could read lips: Kalter Hauch (1972) & Der Liquidator (1984).

Personal Quotes (22)

I guess I look like a rock quarry that someone has dynamited.



Acting is the easiest thing I've done, I guess that's why I'm stuck with it.



Someday I'd like a part where I can lean my elbow against a mantlepiece and have a cocktail.



I don't look like someone who leans on a mantelpiece with a cocktail in my hand, you know. I look like the kind of guy who has a bottle of beer in my hand.



[in 1971] Maybe I'm too masculine. Casting directors cast in their own, or an idealized image. Maybe I don't look like anybody's ideal.



I am not a fan of myself.



Nobody stays on top forever. Nobody!





[in 1977, on Robert Aldrich ] A very good director. Beyond that, he has one fault: he is inflexible. He's horrified if you give him ideas; he only appreciates his own. He wants to use his own brain for everything. That's his greatest fault. If he wasn't so inflexible he would be very great. He refuses to give in. Well, it's impossible for one man to know everything.

I don't have friends, I have thousands of acquaintances. No friends. I figured I had a wife and children. They took up all the personal time I had. My children are my friends. My wife was my friend. We were opposite but I figured it made for a better relationship that way. One of the difficult parts of being a public person married to someone who was seriously ill is that people asked, "So, how's your wife?", I found it difficult. They were strangers.





[on wife Jill Ireland 's terminal illness] When you love someone you feel their pain. It's why some husbands go through morning sickness when their wives are pregnant. But to ever talk about it is difficult. I wouldn't tell Jill how I felt. I behaved in such a way that was opposite to how I felt. I must have seemed strong to her. I didn't want to bring her down. It was like keeping the stiff upper lip, of being British about it. Of course, she understood that. The fear really hits you. That's what you feel first. And then it's the anger and frustration. Part of the problem is how little we understand about the ultimate betrayal of the body when it rebels against itself. You always worry about charlatans. We found that specialists did not know as much as we thought. So, you think maybe there are other answers. There are not but if you believe something will help you it probably will: it will help, not cure. What kind of man would I have been if I had not been there to help her? I felt along with her--not the physical pain, of course, but all her mental anguish. You can't be detached. She needed to have someone who understood what was happening in her mind. That was what I was for.

[explaining his enduring popularity] Audiences like to see the bad guys get their comeuppance.



Stripping naked is not entertainment. It's for voyeurs and I'm damned sure I'm not going to feed their imaginations and let them get their licks by seeing me totally nude.





[on why he was cast in You're in the Navy Now (1951)] I got the job because I could belch on cue.

When I was a kid I was always drawing things. I'd get butcher paper or grocery bags and draw on them. And at school I was the one who got to draw on the windows with soap. Turkeys for Thanksgiving, that kind of thing. It seemed I just knew how to draw. I could draw anything in one continuous line without lifting the crayon from the paper. I had a show of my stuff in Beverly Hills and it sold out in two weeks--and it wasn't because my name was Charles Bronson, because I signed them Buchinsky.





I never talk about the philosophy of a picture. [Director Michael Winner ] is an intelligent man, and I like him. But I don't ever talk to him about the philosophy of a picture. It has never come up. And I wouldn't talk about it to you. I don't expound. I don't like to overtalk a thing. Because I'm entertained more by my own thoughts than by the thoughts of others. I don't mind answering questions. But in an exchange of conversation, I wind up being a pair of ears.



[on why he got into acting] It seemed like an easy way to make money. A friend took me to a play, and I thought I might as well try it myself. I had nothing to lose. I hung around New York and did a little stock-company stuff. I wasn't really sure at that time if l even wanted to be an actor. I got no encouragement. I was living in my own mind, generating my own adrenaline. Nobody took any notice of me. I was in plays I don't even remember. Nobody remembers. I was in something by Molière --I don't even know what it was called. I have no interest in the stage anymore. From an audience point of view, it's old-fashioned. The position I've been in for the last eight years, I have to think that way. I can't think of theater acting for one segment of the population in just one city. That's an inefficient way of reaching people.



I had a very bad experience on the plane in from California yesterday. There was a man on the plane, sitting across from me, and they were showing an old Greer Garson movie. He said, "Hey, why aren't you in that?" The picture was made before I even became an actor. I said, "Why aren't you?" I think I made him understand how stupid his question was. When I'm in public, I even try to hide. I keep as quiet as possible so that I'm not noticed. Not that I hide behind doorways or anything ridiculous like that, but I hide by not making waves. I also try to make myself seem as unapproachable as possible.



I supply a presence. There are never any long dialogue scenes to establish a character. He has to be completely established at the beginning of the movie, and ready to work. Now on this picture, Das Gesetz bin ich (1974), there's something I haven't done for a while--acting. It has that, too, besides the action.

One of the ironies is that I made my breakthrough in movies shot in Europe that the Japanese thought were American movies and that the Americans thought were foreign.





[on his character in Ein Mann sieht rot (1974)] He's an average guy, an average New Yorker. In wartime, he would be a conscientious objector. His whole approach to life is gentle, and he has raised his daughter that way. Now he has second thoughts, and he becomes a killer.

We don't make movies for critics, since they don't pay to see them anyhow.



I am only a product, like a cake of soap, to be sold as well as possible.



Salary (14)