Charles Bronson's Real Name: Charles Dennis Buchinsky

Quick answer: Charles Bronson was born Charles Dennis Buchinsky on November 3, 1921, in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania. He changed his surname to Bronson in 1954 and died on August 30, 2003, in Los Angeles (Britannica).

Coal-country childhood

Bronson was the 11th of 15 children of Lithuanian immigrant parents in Pennsylvania's coal country. His father, Walter, was a miner who died when Charles was about 10. Charles went down the mines as a teenager. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army Air Forces as an aerial gunner on B-29 bombers in the Pacific.

From Buchinsky to Bronson

After the war he studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse and began getting film roles in the early 1950s, credited as Charles Buchinsky. In 1954, during the Army-McCarthy hearings and the anti-communist climate, he changed his name to Charles Bronson, reportedly because he worried a Slavic surname could hurt his career. The name is often said to come from Bronson Avenue and the Bronson Gate at Paramount Studios (Britannica).

Career highlights

• Machine-Gun Kelly (1958): his first lead role.
• The Magnificent Seven (1960): as gunfighter Bernardo O'Reilly.
• The Great Escape (1963): as tunnel-digger Danny Velinski.
• The Dirty Dozen (1967).
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968): as "Harmonica" for Sergio Leone.
• Death Wish (1974): as vigilante Paul Kersey, a role he played in five films through 1994.

Bronson became a major star in Europe first. In 1972 he received a Golden Globe Henrietta Award as World Film Favorite.

Personal life

He married Harriet Tendler in 1949. In 1968 he married English actress Jill Ireland, his co-star in more than a dozen films. She died in 1990. He married Kim Weeks in 1998. Bronson died of pneumonia in 2003 at age 81.

Not to be confused with the British prisoner who took the name "Charles Bronson" (born Michael Gordon Peterson).