Charles Bronson

Born Charles Dennis Buchinsky in extreme poverty in a Pennsylvania coal town, Bronson worked the mines after his father died, then joined the Army Air Forces in 1943 to fight in World War II. After the war he studied acting and spent the 1950s in supporting roles until Machine-Gun Kelly (1958) gave him his first lead. He built credibility in ensemble action films — The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen — but found stardom abroad, where Alain Delon hired him for Adieu l'ami and Sergio Leone cast him in Once Upon a Time in the West. By the early '70s he was the most popular Am…