Charles Bronson was born with a pipe clenched in his mouth and a sock full of quarters in his hand.
From Instagram:
Before Hollywood knew him as Charles Bronson, the world knew him as Charles Buchinsky.
Born to Lithuanian immigrant coal miners in Pennsylvania, Bronson grew up underground, not on a soundstage. When war came, he left the mines and joined the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943, volunteering for one of the most dangerous jobs of the air war.
Bronson served as a B-29 Superfortress aerial gunner with the 39th Bomb Group, 314th Bomb Wing, operating from Guam in the Marianas. Flying long-range missions over the Japanese home islands, he endured flak, fighters, engine fires, and the constant strain of combat at altitude. These missions were measured in hours, exhaustion, and survival, not glamour.
He flew 25 combat missions, earning the Purple Heart after being wounded during a raid when shrapnel tore into his arm. Like so many who served, he rarely spoke about the war afterward. The silence stayed with him, shaping the hardened screen presence that later defined his career.
Bronson did not act tough. He had already lived it.