May God be merciful and lift Charles Buchinski up to the Light of His countenance,
and may perpetual Light shine upon him.
Posted on 08/31/2003 7:19:53 PM PDT by hemogoblin
That's it - just came in our newsroom
I live behind the Venice office. Small world..
Subsequent small and large roles earned him a reputation for rugged, tough-guy characters, making the most of his unconventional features. Bronson was once quoted as saying, "I guess I look like a rock quarry that someone has dynamited."
It wasn't until 1960 and the role of Bernardo, one of the The Magnificent Seven, that Bronson's career took off. Subsquent roles in The Great Escape in 1963, where he played claustrophobic tunnel-digger Danny Velinski, and The Dirty Dozen in 1967 solidified his status.
Bronson spent the next few years in Europe, where he became a box-office draw with such films as Alain Delon's Adieu l'ami and Sergio Leone's classic Once Upon a Time in the West, both in 1968.
He return the United States where true stardom evaded him until 1974, when Michael Winner directed him in Death Wish, 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 celebrity in his own country and set the tough, cold, violent persona that made him a film icon. Some exceptions include Hard Times in 1975, where he played a 1930s streetfighter and the 1976 offbeat black comedy From Noon Till Three. However, Bronson was drawn to action-thrillers like Breakout in 1975 and Love and Bullets in 1979, as well as the super-gory Ten to Midnight in 1983, The Evil That Men Do in 1984 and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects in 1989.
Bronson's TV work included such movies as Raid on Entebbe in 1977, Act of Vengeance in 1986, The Sea Wolf in 1993, and Sean Penn's The Indian Runner in 1991.
Bronson has two children with his first wife, Harriet Tendler. He married actress and producer Jill Ireland in 1958, who had two sons with her first husband, David McCallum. One adopted son (Jason) died in 1989. He and Ireland had a daughter named Zuleika. Ireland died in 1990. Bronson married his third wife, Kim Weeks, in December, 1998.
"Report: Cambria native Charles Bronson is ailing
By FRANK SOJAK, THE TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT August 22, 2003
Charles Bronson, a Cambria County native and the region’s biggest screen star since Johnny “Tarzan” Weismuller, is seriously ill.
The San Francisco Examiner said Bronson, who has Alzheimer’s disease, suffered serious organ failure earlier this month and has been in the hospital since. The Examiner’s story said Bronson’s doctors estimated the actor had days to live and Bronson’s wife, Kim, reportedly was making arrangements to take him home.
Bronson, 81, told his wife he wanted to die at his Golden State home, the newspaper said.
Born Charles Buchinsky and one of 15 children of a Lithuanian coal miner in Ehrenfeld, Bronson went to work in the mines upon graduating from high school.
He saw combat action as a tail gunner over Europe in World War II. After the war he participated in the acting apprenticeship program at Pasadena (Calif.) Playhouse. Bronson got a break in 1950 when he was picked to play a sailor in “You’re in the Navy Now,” starring Gary Cooper. He continued in small roles and a television series, “Man With a Camera,” then played the title role in the 1957 film “Machine Gun Kelly.”
Bronson, best known for his tough guy images, has made and contributed to such classic films as “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Dirty Dozen,” both in the 1960s, and the “Death Wish” series.
Critics say his career really took off when he made “The Magnificent Seven” in 1960. In the late 1960s, Bronson spent several years making films in Europe, where he became a box-office draw. He returned to the United States and reached true stardom in 1974 when he starred in the film “Death Wish.” The film was a revenge fantasy about an architect who turned vigilante when his wife and daughter were raped.
Kevin Hagopian, a lecturer in media studies at Penn State University and an American film history expert, said Bronson is important as an actor for beginning his career as a contract player in the old studio system.
Under that system, Bronson was under contract with several studios and played minor roles in big-budget films. Hagopian said Bronson typically played villains. He said Bronson hit his stride with the “The Magnificent Seven” and really began to focus on feature roles in “The Battle of the Bulge” in 1965, and 1967’s “The Dirty Dozen.” In those films, he developed a persona that he would be identified with the rest of his life, that of a deadpan, violent character who was also sympathetic, Hagopian said.
Clint Eastwood also emerged around the same time as Bronson. With the “Death Wish” series, Bronson settled on a character that represented attitudes that audiences responded to well, Hagopian said. “It was Bronson’s gift that he knew exactly what audiences wanted to see,” Hagopian said. “He is a great star.” In the second half of the 20th century, John Wayne was the No. 1 box office draw – but Bronson and Eastwood were for a time neck-and-neck for second."
©Tribune Democrat 2003 "
Indeed. My father worked at the Herald-Tribune for years, in the sixties. In Sarasota, that is.
In Mr. Majestyk, Vince Majestyk (Bronson) absolutely has to get his watermelon crop in, come hell or high water, and nothing in the world is going to stop him. One day, Bobby Kopas (Koslo) shows up on the farm and attempts to force Majestyk to use his crew of winos rather than the hand-picked migrant labor that he employed. Instead, Majestyk takes the outclassed punk's shotgun away from him like a father taking away a misbehaving child's toy and sends him on his way with some sore testicles. Kopas swears out an assault complaint on Majestyk, and soon the melon grower finds himself in the county lockup. In jail, he meets hitman Renda (Lettieri), and the two regard each other with hostility and suspicion. In a segment worthy of action director John Frankenheimer, Renda's pals try to break him out of a prison bus in a street shootout. Instead, Majestyk commandeers the bus and drives off with Renda, with the intention of using him as a pawn to get the charges dropped on himself -- so he can get his melon crop in, of course. The situation turns over several times before the movie's conclusion, a spectacular chase scene that plays like a vintage commercial for Ford trucks as Majestyk's Old Yeller pickup goes flying, with him in the back clutching a 12-gauge and holding on for dear life. Mr. Majestyk's script was written by none other than Elmore Leonard himself, and the rhythms of his hard-bitten prose are clear throughout. As expected with a Leonard story, there are plenty of plot flip-flops and more than a little tongue-in-cheek humor (the stony Bronson even gets a few of the good lines). Lettieri was a large, ugly, intimidating man (recognizable from Peckinpah's The Getaway), a perfect bit of casting as the ruthless goon Renda. However, despite his size and bearing, Renda still received a royal ass-whupping or two from Majestyk. Koslo, on the other hand, made a career of playing exactly the type of wormy character that he portrayed in this movie -- tough-talking snotnoses with Jell-O for spines. A word of warning: Vegetarians and those with sensitive temperaments may be disturbed by the machine-gun slaughter of hundreds of defenseless watermelons in one of the movie's more sublime scenes. It's not great stuff, but in the same vein as Prime Cut, Mr. Majestyk is a fast-moving Seventies action flick that doesn't take itself too seriously and isn't above a blithely ridiculous plot device or two.
Again?
RIP Sir, and may your loved ones find solace.
But not the most freakish. That honor belongs to "El Topo."
Well, IMO Casablanca is the best movie ever made. But OUATITW is a very close second.
I never saw the directors cut, could you send it to me?
Near the end of the runway that those damn terrorists
practiced on. Those ba$tard$ flew right over our house.
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