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Actors We Miss: Charles Bronson



As a stoic action hero who rarely stoops to showing emotion, Jason Statham has on occasion been compared to the late, great Charles Bronson, never more so than this weekend with the remake of ‘The Mechanic’ opening in wide release.

Statham displays his usual tough-yet-charming demeanor in the filmas an experienced hitman who takes on a young charge and teaches him the tricks of the trade. In the 1972 original, Bronson tutored Jan-Michael Vincent. While the characters and general outline of the two films are similar, a comparison shows that Bronson and Statham are very different actors. And a brief review of Bronson’s career, which stretched out over 40 years, reveals that he played a much greater variety of roles, with much greater success, than simply stone-faced killers.

One important distinction is that by the time Bronson starred in ‘The Mechanic,’ he was already 50 years of age. (He actually turned 51 shortly after the film was released; Statham is 39.) He’d been a working actor for 20 years, but he started late, years after he worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines as a teenager in the 1930s and then served in World War II. For a long time it seemed that he might never achieve stardom.

Machine-Gun Kelly

He played small parts in films and on television, changing his stage name from Buchinsky to Bronson in 1953, before snaring the title role in Roger Corman’s ‘Machine-Gun Kelly.’

Six months later he grabbed another lead in ‘When Hell Broke Loose’ (pictured at top of article), a World War II picture that featured Bronson as Steve Boland, an apathetic bookie compelled into military service. The film, which is available via Netflix Watch Instantly, follows Boland as he schemes his way through the war, avoiding the action as best he can, until the love of a good German woman changes his tune. He’s a scoundrel, but a charming one, and it’s fun to watch Bronson at the age of 36, dispensing wisecracks and showing his vulnerable, romantic side before finally springing into heroic action.

Around the same time, Bronson also began appearing on television as ‘Man with a Camera,’ a series that lasted two seasons. Bronson played a former combat cameraman turned freelance photographer in Manhattan. A few months after the show ended its run in February 1960, Bronson rose to greater visibility as Bernardo, a good-hearted gunfighter in John Sturges’ ‘The Magnificent Seven’ who takes a paternal interest in the children of the village he is hired to protect.

He again played a father figure in ‘Kid Galahad’ (1962), training Elvis Presley as a boxer for promoter Gig Young. In the film, which is also available via Netflix Watch Instantly, Bronson is protective of the kid, trying to bring him along slowly. He becomes a loyal, steadfast friend, an iron man of integrity. Bronson’s performance doesn’t deflect attention from Presley or the other, higher-billed stars; you just wish you could see more of him.

Bronson teamed again with director Sturges, Steve McQueen and James Coburn in 1963’s ‘The Great Escape,’ playing Danny the tunnel king, the cool-headed digger who finally succumbs to his claustrophobia in the scene below.

Danny’s breakdown surprises the men, who really don’t have time to deal with it since they’re in the midst of a long-planned escape. And Bronson plays it just right, the tough guy who doesn’t want to admit his own weakness. Adding to the poignancy of the scene is the report that Bronson had claustrophobia himself, based on his years working in coal mines.

Bronson scored again with key roles in Robert Aldrich’s ‘The Dirty Dozen’ and Sergio Leone’s ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ a few years later. Supposedly, Leone had wanted Bronson to play The Man With No Name in ‘A Fistful of Dollars,’ the role that started Clint Eastwood on the road to international stardom.

As a man dubbed “Harmonica,” Bronson embodied a similar type; he was “the good guy,” in opposition to the pure evil of Henry Fonda’s cold-blooded killer. Harmonica, a quiet, soft-spoken man, had no qualms abut killing, but it was always in defense of himself or others. You could see the threat in his eyes, as in this excerpt from the opening sequence of the movie.


Bronson became a full-blown star in Europe, appearing in a flurry of pictures, including ‘Rider on the Rain,’ ‘The Family,’ ‘Cold Sweat,’ ‘Red Sun,’ ‘The Valachi Papers,’ ‘Chato’s Land,’ and then ‘The Mechanic,’ followed by ‘Chino,’ The Stone Killer,’ and ‘Mr. Majestyk.’ These were all, to my memory, solid, sturdy films; Bronson played variations on his tough guy persona with verve and his own flair.

He was never someone who submerged himself into the role, so that you forgot you were watching Charles Bronson. But that’s what also made him a star: he had his own personality, the man who would rather downplay his own emotions rather than make a big deal about them.

Here’s an example from ‘The Mechanic,’ in which offers Jan-Michael Vincent some unusual training.


It’s not that he was completely without feelings, some kind of robot; it was that he kept things under control. He handled the situation, instead of allowing the situation to dictate what he had to do.

When ‘Death Wish’ came along in 1974, it was simply the latest tough guy role in a string of tough guy roles, even though today it’s probably the one that’s most associated with him. The theme of someone taking the law into his own hands had been explored many times before. But in the summer of 1974, the idea of a citizen fighting back against criminals struck a nerve, and Bronson’s character, architect Paul Kersey, was viewed as a hero by many.

Death Wish

Our own Jacob Hall recently viewed the film for the first time, and commented that Bronson “doesn’t look like a movie star … he looks like a weirdo who’d break your jaw if you looked at him funny.” He also described his feeling that “it’s impossible to buy Bronson as a liberal family man, [though] he remains unmatched as a silent, icy killer.”

Why do some feel that it’s “impossible” to believe that Bronson could be a liberal family man? To some extent, it may just be unfamiliarity with the full range of the man’s back catalog. In the years immediately after ‘Death Wish,’ for example, Bronson could be seen as a pilot in the entertaining prison picture ‘Breakout’ (with Robert Duvall), as a brutal street fighter in the very good ‘Hard Times’ (the directorial debut of the talented Walter Hill), as a prisoner investigating a crime in the Western ‘Breakheart Pass’ (with Richard Crenna), as a writer investigating a murder in the classy, if improbable, mystery ‘St. Ives,’ and as a romantic bank robber in ‘From Noon Til Three.’

In none of those did he play a hardened killer. In all of them he gave solid performances. Were they worthy of Academy Award consideration? No. But neither did they leave audiences feeling cheated.

Admittedly, Bronson eventually did fall into a much more limited pattern of roles. Whether that was because it’s all that was offered to him, or because he wanted to keep to the tried and true formulas, it’s difficult to say from this vantage point. Age was becoming a factor as well. By the early 80s, Bronson was turning 60, and the decade was fated for domination by younger action stars like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Bronson gave spirited performances opposite his old ‘Dirty Dozen’ commander Lee Marvin in 1981’s ‘Death Hunt’ and anchored the unwieldy, fascinating ’10 to Midnight,’ which remains a personal favorite despite all its missteps. (See more from our own Alison Nastasi.) His heart didn’t seem to be in the ‘Death Wish’ sequels, which began in 1982 and continued for another dozen years, and his other work in the 80s is undistinguished.

Sean Penn, happily, gave Bronson a chance to show his quiet dignity in ‘The Indian Runner,’ as in this brief scene.

He ended up back on television in the 90s, in the ‘Family of Cops’ series. He passed away on August 20, 2003, at the end of 81.

Perhaps because most of us were introduced to him later in life, Bronson always seemed to be of an older generation than the films in which he appeared. If he was born 20 years earlier, he could have risen through the ranks as a contract player. Maybe he would have been a tough guy in Warner Brothers’ crime movies of the 30s, or an eternal supporting character in MGM productions, like so many other actors of Eastern European descent.

But I like to think that he would have risen near the top of his profession, no matter what era in which he was born. Given the opportunity, he was fully capable of displaying an entire range of emotion, of being a romantic, vulnerable, petrified, stalwart, dependable, friendly, engaging, cheerful, stoic champion of a loser.

In short, I don’t care what he looked like: Charles Bronson was beautiful.

19 Hard Things You Don’t Actually Need To Do To Be Successful

A list called “19 Hard Things You Need To Do To Be Successful” is making its rounds on the Internet, and I’m here to basically call bullshit on most of it. Success isn’t always necessarily easy, but give me a break. (I should note that I’m really lazy and thus probably really, really biased.)

Blanket statements like the ones listed make life out to be a lot harder than it needs to be. You can succeed and not be miserable or Machiavellian. I promise. Here 19 Hard Things You Don’t Actually Need To Do To Be Successful.

You have to make the call you’re afraid to make.
I’m not sure if they mean a call as in a decision or as in a phone call. But either way, if you’re afraid to make it, it means you probably shouldn’t make it, because you’re not confident enough and haven’t thought through it adequately. And if the call you’re afraid to make is to a 900 number or a telephone psychic, you really shouldn’t make it.

You have to get up earlier than you want to get up.
Well, that depends. If your thought flow is better at night than in the morning and/or you don’t have a long commute, what’s the point? And what if I want to get up at 4AM? You do not know my life.

You have to give more than you get in return right away.
Then you may just be giving to the wrong people.
You have to care more about others than they care about you.
Then you may just be caring about the wrong people. Imagine if this were a dating scenario. You’d tell your girlfriend in the situation to drop the douchebag, right? Why should your career be different?

You have to fight when you are already injured, bloody, and sore.
Who the hell are you, Rocky Balboa? If your job is like this, you need a new job or a better trainer.

You have to feel unsure and insecure when playing it safe seems smarter.
You also have to word this better, because the modifiers are all over the place. I think the intended meaning is that you have to accept your insecurity and forgo playing it safe all the time. But remember: With big risks come big rewards. And huge gambling debts.

You have to lead when no one else is following you yet.
That’s not leading. That’s just walking. What’s the problem?

You have to invest in yourself even though no one else is.
Okay, this is sort of obvious. Not many people are going to be willing to buy your Botox for you. Or your, you know, books.

You have to look like a fool while you’re looking for answers you don’t have.
Or you could just look like a quiet person doing research.

You have to grind out the details when it’s easier to shrug them off.
Or you could look at the forest, not the trees.

You have to deliver results when making excuses is an option.
You have to deliver results anyway. And by the way, excuses are always an option. Always. Especially when a paternity episode of Maury is on and you can telecommute.

You have to search for your own explanations even when you’re told to accept the “facts.”
If “facts” are in quotations, they are not facts. You should be doing this anyway. If I didn’t, I’d still think the Tooth Fairy existed. And if she does, I never got paid for that extraction I got when I was 20. In fact, I had to pay for that. That’s bullshit. Where do I send her invoice?

You have to make mistakes and look like an idiot.
You never have to look like an idiot. You can look like a novice, but there’s no excuse for looking like an idiot. Only an idiot would take advice to look like an idiot.

You have to try and fail and try again.
Hopefully you’re not trying the same thing, because that failed. And it probably failed for a good reason.

You have to run faster even though you’re out of breath.
I have exercise-induced asthma. I’m not Jesus (unless you make a typo in my first name), and I am not going to die for you.

You have to be kind to people who have been cruel to you.
Of course. It makes them feel even worse. And that’s so much fun!

You have to meet deadlines that are unreasonable and deliver results that are unparalleled.
Or you can learn to negotiate your deadlines so they are reasonable.

You have to be accountable for your actions even when things go wrong.
The entire last half of this is superfluous.

You have to keep moving towards where you want to be no matter what’s in front of you.
I want to be in Chris Hemsworth’s pants. If there’s a restraining order in front of me, it’s probably wise that I stop. (It doesn’t mean that I will.)

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