Charles Bronson has died, he was 81

I loved Bronson the actor when a kid. That was when he played cowboys. Later, as a parent, I worked very hard to keep my kids from watching the Death Wish type of films. While one cannot keep violent images from touching the young, at least we can try to control the messages that accompany them. Death Wish was just an excuse to deprive people of due process, among other things. Of course, with the invention of VCRs, the kids had but to visit friends and then watch everything I tried to censor. Anyway, I bear the man's memory no ill will.

I appreciated the first Death Wish movie and what it stood for. Of course, they ran it into the ground with Death Wish II, III and wasn't there even a IV? Vigilante behavior may not be the way to go in a just society but society is not always just.
I was surprised to read that he had remarried after the death of his beloved Jill Ireland.

A murderer is just a murderer, no matter how idealized.

Interesting that you mention his roles in Westerns, Edgar. I remember him most for his role in The Magnificent Seven, opposite Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. It was really a minor role but he was, somehow, the most believable character in the whole film for my money. I think that Bronson was a much better actor than the B roles he was given would indicate. His talent was never allowed to show.

He often had walk on parts in which he barely talked. Shame. He also had a short lived tv series in which he played a crime photographer. Don';t recall the name.

He did some great movies!

The Harmonica

I didn't realize it when I typed my earlier post, but Magnificent Seven was Bronson's first screen role. The film also gave a start to James Coburn, another unknown at the time. And it jump-started Steve McQueen's career as a superstar. Up til then, he had been mainly known for his TV series Wanted, Dead or Alive, not for any big-screen work.

Apropos of what Edgar said, I've never seen a single one of the Death Wish films and have no desire whatever to do so.

He wasn't mistreated by Hollywood, given only walk-on parts. Bronson was an international star. Check out his bio:

Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:

He once said, "I guess I look like a rock quarry that someone has dynamited," but despite his craggy, unconventional features and taciturn manner, Charles Bronson became an international star relatively late in his career, depicting men of action who were not afraid to use violence to get a job done. Bronson was one of fifteen children born to Lithuanian immigrant parents, and though he was the only member of the family to complete high school, he joined his brothers working in the coal mines to support the family. He served during World War 2 as a tailgunner, then used his G.I. Bill rights to study art in Philadelphia and, intrigued by acting, enrolled at California's Pasadena Playhouse. An instructor there recommended him to director Henry Hathaway for a movie role and the result was Buchinsky's debut in You're in the Navy Now (1951). He secured more bit parts- mostly as tough-looking window dressing- in films like The People Against O'Hara, The Mob (both 1951) and Red Skies of Montana (1952) and graduated to more substantial roles in Pat and Mike (1952, where he is beaten up by Katharine Hepburn!) and House of Wax (1953, as Vincent Price's mute assistant, Igor).
He began playing Indians in 1954's Apache and received good notices as Captain Jack in Drum Beat (also 1954, and the film in which he was first credited as Charles Bronson). He alternated features like Vera Cruz (1954) with television work, and won larger roles in B movies like Big House, U.S.A and Target Zero (both 1955). Good supporting roles continued in big features like Jubal (1956) and Run of the Arrow (1957, as Chief Blue Buffalo), but his leads were confined to a string of B's like Gang War, Showdown at Boot Hill, Machine Gun Kelly and When Hell Broke Loose (all 1958). Following his own TV series, "Man With a Camera" (1958-60, as photographer Mike Kovac), Bronson had his first taste of film stardom as Bernardo, one of the The Magnificent Seven (1960). Master of the World, A Thunder of Drums (both 1961), X-15 and Kid Galahad (both 1962), were followed with a solid role in The Great Escape (1963), as the claustrophobic tunnel-digger Danny Velinski. He had more good parts in 4 for Texas (1963), The Sandpiper (1965), and the smash The Dirty Dozen (1967) before heading to Europe, where he spent the next few years. He appeared in Guns for San Sebastian and Villa Rides (both 1968), and then teamed with Alain Delon for Adieu l'ami (1968), which was a smash in France, before starring in the classic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), directed by Sergio Leone (who had originally offered him the role in A Fistful of Dollars that made Clint Eastwood a star).
These films established Bronson as a top box-office draw in Europe, and the stylish Rider on the Rain, The Family (both 1970), Cold Sweat (1971), and Red Sun (1972) raised him to the ranks of the most popular stars worldwide. Duplicating that success in the U.S. came slowly with Chato's Land, The Mechanic, The Valachi Papers (all 1972), and Mr. Majestyk (1974), until Bronson's frequent collaborator Michael Winner directed him in Death Wish (1974), a revenge fantasy about an architect who turns vigilante when his wife and daughter are raped. The movie was both controversial and extremely popular (and spawned four inferior sequels in 1982, 1985, 1987, and 1994). It also established Bronson as a star in his own country and set the tough, cold, violent persona he would project from that time on. There were some exceptions along the way, most notably the excellent Hard Times (1975, as a 1930s streetfighter), the offbeat black comedy From Noon Till Three (1976, the best of many teamings with his wife, Jill Ireland), and The White Buffalo (1977, as Wild Bill Hickok). However, Bronson stuck with action-thrillers like Breakout (1975), Telefon (1977), and Love and Bullets (1979) and spent the 1980s in gory fodder like Ten to Midnight (1983), The Evil That Men Do (1984), Murphy's Law (1986), and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989), exterminating a variety of pimps and psychos. Bronson did some of his most interesting work in TV movies, including Raid on Entebbe (1977), Act of Vengeance (1986, as United Mine Workers official Jack Yablonski), and in the title role of The Sea Wolf (1993), although his role as a stern father in Sean Penn's The Indian Runner (1991) proved he could become a character actor if he chose to. He was married to actress Jill Ireland from 1968 until her death in 1990.

I really enjoyed The Mechanic and Telefon

"Telefon" is his best film in my opinion. His was a studied performance with his usual free emotional intensity but also with an intelligent analysis of his character. He was the consumate representation of the nobel savage.

I remember him from The Great Escape - he's a Polish partisan in the prison camp, and digs the tunnel but is claustrophobic. You felt for him - that tunnel would've made anyone claustrophobic.

Charles Bronson (aka, Bunchinsky)
Charlie made a lot of good movies, enjoyed them all, In the 1950's remember going to see him as a Indian in a western. He was always a tough guy, real life and movies. The tour guides in Pennsilvanias coal mine remember his visits, and speak highly of him, but the men he actually mines with are long gone from lung problems. Could be a reason for his leaving us so soon.

Thanks for the movies,
jon28518

Telefon uno numbre


Bronson's characterization of a KGB Colonel in Telefon was quite realistic.

I felt Chato's Land (great movie) was underrated by the critics and generally underappreciated by the public.

And then there was The Mechanic which (2 Thumbs Up) I felt was another underappreciated Bronson flic.