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01/09/2003
Action star Charles Bronson dies aged 81
Hollywood action star Charles Bronson has died aged 81 after a brief illness.
Famous for his uncompromising tough guy portrayals, particularly in the controversial violent vigilante ‘Death Wish’ film series, and the ‘Magnificent Seven’, Bronson was the archetypal ‘heavy’ in many films.
He also had leading film roles in the European ‘spaghetti westerns’ of Sergio Leone including ‘Guns For San Sebastian’ and ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’.
Paying tribute, director Michael Winner said that Bronson was a “close friend and a very under-rated actor”.
Bronson died on Saturday from pneumonia at Cedar-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles.
Born Charles Buchinski in 1921 in Pennsylvania he worked as a coal miner along with many of his Lithuanian relatives. Following US military service in WWII as a tail-gunner, he went on to study acting in California. Changing his name to Bronson, he had his first big breaks in the 1960’s with action epics such as ‘The Great Escape’ and ‘The Dirty Dozen’.
Bronson once declared that the ‘Death Wish’ films, in which he played unemotional vigilante Paul Kersey, a man bent on revenge, had provided “satisfaction for people who are victimised by crime”.
He was awarded a special Golden Globe for being “the most popular actor in the world” in 1971.
His wife Jill Ireland, with whom Bronson appeared in many films, died of cancer in 1990.
(SP)
Famous for his uncompromising tough guy portrayals, particularly in the controversial violent vigilante ‘Death Wish’ film series, and the ‘Magnificent Seven’, Bronson was the archetypal ‘heavy’ in many films.
He also had leading film roles in the European ‘spaghetti westerns’ of Sergio Leone including ‘Guns For San Sebastian’ and ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’.
Paying tribute, director Michael Winner said that Bronson was a “close friend and a very under-rated actor”.
Bronson died on Saturday from pneumonia at Cedar-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles.
Born Charles Buchinski in 1921 in Pennsylvania he worked as a coal miner along with many of his Lithuanian relatives. Following US military service in WWII as a tail-gunner, he went on to study acting in California. Changing his name to Bronson, he had his first big breaks in the 1960’s with action epics such as ‘The Great Escape’ and ‘The Dirty Dozen’.
Bronson once declared that the ‘Death Wish’ films, in which he played unemotional vigilante Paul Kersey, a man bent on revenge, had provided “satisfaction for people who are victimised by crime”.
He was awarded a special Golden Globe for being “the most popular actor in the world” in 1971.
His wife Jill Ireland, with whom Bronson appeared in many films, died of cancer in 1990.
(SP)
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