Charles Bronson

Charles Bronson, born Charles Dennis Buchinsky on November 3, 1921 and died on August 30, 2003, was an American actor known for action films. He grew up in extreme poverty in the coal mining town of Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, worked in the mines and served in the United States Army Air Forces in the Second World War before training as an actor. After supporting parts in films and television anthology series in the 1950s, he took his first leading film role in Machine-Gun Kelly in 1958. He co-starred in The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen, became the most popular American actor in Europe with films such as Once Upon a Time in the West and Rider on the Rain, and in 1974 starred in Death Wish, which spawned four sequels. He shared a special Golden Globe Henrietta Award as World Film Favorite, Male.