Having seen the outside world, he vowed not to return to the squalor of Scooptown.Īt the Pasadena Playhouse school, Bronson improved his diction, supporting himself by selling Christmas cards and toys on street corners. He might have stayed in the mines for the rest of his life except for World War II.ĭrafted in 1943, he served with the Air Force in the Pacific, reportedly as a tail gunner on a B29. Like other toughs in Scooptown, he raised some hell and landed in jail for assault and robbery. He was paid $1 per ton of coal and volunteered for perilous jobs because the pay was better. At the age of 6, Charles was embarrassed to attend school in his sister’s dress.Ĭharles’ father died when he was 10, and at 16 Charles followed his brothers into the mines. Young Charles learned the art of survival in the tough district of Scooptown, “where you had nothing to lose because you lost it already.” The Bunchinskys lived crowded in a shack, the children wearing hand-me-downs from older siblings. He was the 11th of 15 children of a coal miner and his wife, both Lithuanian immigrants. 3, 1921 - not 1922, as studio biographies claimed - in Ehrenfeld, Pa. His early life gave no indication of his later fame.
Maybe I don’t look like anybody’s ideal.”
Casting directors cast in their own, or an idealized image.
