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 Buchinsky, one of 15 children of struggling parents in Pennsylvania. His mother, Mary (Valinsky), was born in Pennsylvania, to Lithuanian parents, and his father, Walter Buchinsky, was a Lithuanian immigrant 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 You're in the Navy Now (1951). He appeared on screen often early in his career, though usually uncredited. However, he made an impact on audiences as the evil assistant to Vincent Price in the 3-D thriller Panoptikum - A viaszbabák háza (1953). 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 (1954), Target Zero (1955) and Run of the Arrow (1957). Indie director Roger Corman cast him as the lead in his well-received low-budget gangster flick Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), then Bronson scored the lead in his own TV series, Man with a Camera (1958). 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 A hét mesterlövész (1960), and hired him again as tunnel rat Danny Velinski for the WWII POW big-budget epic A nagy szökés (1963). Several more strong roles followed, then once a
| Episode |
Colt .45 Young Gun |
1957 |
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Combat! Heritage |
1965 |
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Richard Diamond, Private Detective The Pete Rocco Case (a.k.a. Prison Break) |
1957 |
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Rawhide Duel at Daybreak |
1965 |
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Have Gun, Will Travel Ben Jalisco |
1961 |
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Adventures in Paradise Survival |
1961 |
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Have Gun, Will Travel Brotherhood |
1963 |
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General Electric Theater Memory In White |
1961 |
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Alfred Hitchcock Presents There Was an Old Woman |
1956 |
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M Squad The Fight |
1958 |
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The New Breed The Valley of the Three Charlies |
1961 |
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The Fugitive The One That Got Away |
1967 |
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Playhouse 90 The Rank and File |
1959 |
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Have Gun, Will Travel The Outlaw |
1957 |
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Cain's Hundred Dead Load |
1961 |
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Dr. Kildare Who Ever Heard Of Two-Headed Doll? |
1963 |
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Gunsmoke Lost Rifle |
1958 |
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The F.B.I. The Animal |
1974 |
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Have Gun, Will Travel A Proof of Love |
1961 |
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The Jack Benny Program General Electric Theater: The Honest Man |
1956 |
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The Dick Cavett Show Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Lana Cantrell, Jill Ireland |
1972 |
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The Islanders The Generous Politician |
1961 |
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Sugarfoot The Bullet and the Cross |
1958 |
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The Twilight Zone Two |
1961 |
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Alfred Hitchcock Presents And So Died Riabouchinska |
1956 |
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The F.B.I. The Animal |
1966 |
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U.S. Marshal Pursuit |
1959 |
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Alfred Hitchcock Presents The Woman Who Wanted to Live |
1962 |
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Have Gun, Will Travel The Man Who Wouldn't Talk |
1958 |
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Conflict Warner Brothers Presents: (Anthology No.4) Deep Freeze |
1956 |
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Cavalcade of America Chain Of Hearts |
1955 |
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One Step Beyond The Last Round |
1961 |
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Conflict Warner Brothers Presents: (Anthology No.3) Explosion |
1956 |
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Sugarfoot Man Wanted |
1958 |
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Gunsmoke The Killer |
1956 |
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The Untouchables The Death Tree |
1962 |
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Riverboat Zigzag |
1960 |
