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Charles Bronson, 81, Movie Tough Guy, Dies

By RICHARD SEVERO

Charles Bronson, a muscular coal miner from Pennsylvania who became an international film star and archetypal American tough guy, died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 81 and lived in Los Angeles.

The cause was pneumonia, said his publicist, Lori Jonas.

Mr. Bronson was acclaimed in Italy as Il Brutto (The Ugly One) and in France he was one of the monstres sacrés of the cinema. His acceptance in the United States was delayed and muted, with critics sour on the violence that stalked the scripts of his films and not so sure that someone so totally typecast could really act.

But the release of a French-made thriller called "Rider on the Rain" in 1969 convinced many naysayers that Mr. Bronson had a great deal of artistic skill that Hollywood's casting directors had squandered. Judith Crist, writing in New York magazine, said the movie convinced her that he was "a forceful actor" who was "wonderfully menacing and tough."

Six years later he impressed critics with his portrayal of an itinerant prizefighter in "Hard Times," and he won praise again in 1976 as the lead in "From Noon Till Three," a satirical western.

Still, Mr. Bronson was best known for his roles in what were some of Hollywood's most violent films of the 1970's. None were more violent than the 1974 movie "Death Wish," in which Mr. Bronson portrayed an architect turned vigilante who hunts muggers in New York after his wife is killed and his daughter raped by thugs. The critics denounced the film as a vehicle for legitimizing violent behavior. Vincent Canby, reviewing it for The New York Times, called it "a despicable movie, one that raises complex questions in order to offer bigoted, frivolous, oversimplified answers."

The movie nevertheless became a hit and made Mr. Bronson, then in his early 50's and already a success in Europe, a star in America. Responding to critics' complaints, he said, "We don't make movies for critics, since they don't pay to see them anyhow."

But privately he was upset at his typecasting and longed for more challenging roles. He harbored those feelings even though in interviews he continued to work hard to create an image of toughness. He told interviewers that he had been in fistfights and had been arrested on charges of assault and battery, and he liked to suggest to journalists that his hobby was knife-throwing. But reporters who checked out his stories found no police record, no assault and battery, no predisposition toward violence. In fact, they learned that Mr. Bronson's hobby was painting and that he was a quiet, personable, gentle man.

There was no question, however, that Mr. Bronson had known hard times. He was born on Nov. 3, 1921, in the Scooptown section of Ehrenfeld, Pa., a coal-mining town. His real name was Charles Buchinsky, and he was the 11th of 15 children born to Lithuanian immigrants.

He knew little about his father, who died when Mr. Bronson was 10. He knew abject poverty throughout his early years: his family was so poor that when he was 6 he was sent to school in a dress, a hand-me-down from an older sister.

By the time he was 16 he was working in the coal mines, earning about $1 for each ton of coal he clawed out of the earth.

In 1943, he was drafted into the Army. Years later, after he established himself as an actor, his press releases would say he had been a tail gunner during World War II. But one reporter found that Mr. Bronson was assigned to the 760th Mess Squadron in Kingman, Ariz., and that he drove a delivery truck during the war.

After the war, Mr. Bronson held various jobs, working as a bricklayer, short-order cook and an onion-picker in New York State. He then went to Atlantic City, where he rented beach chairs on the boardwalk. There he met some vacationing actors from a Philadelphia troupe and persuaded them to let him demonstrate his ability to paint scenery. They were impressed and hired him, then let him do a bit of acting.

Mr. Bronson found that he liked acting more than painting, and in 1949 he went to California and took lessons at the Pasadena Playhouse. In 1951 he had a minor role in "You're in the Navy Now," which starred Gary Cooper. Mr. Bronson later explained that he got the part because he was the only one among the auditioning actors who could belch on cue.

He changed his name to Bronson in the 1950's because he thought that the anti-Communist crusade then being conducted by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy made it unwise for someone in the public eye to have a Russian-sounding name.

He continued his work in low-budget movies, one of which was "Machine-Gun Kelly," made in 1958 in only eight days. The French actor Alain Delon saw it, remembered it and, several years later, invited Mr. Bronson to France, where he made "Adieu, l'Ami," which became an enormous success in Europe.

By the 1970's, Mr. Bronson had a loyal following, and even many critics agreed that although the scripts were usually bad, Mr. Bronson could be counted on to turn in a good performance. Among his credits by this time were "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), "The Great Escape" (1963) and "Mr. Majestyk" (1974). He also made four "Death Wish" sequels.

In 1969, after his divorce from his first wife, the former Harriet Tendler, he married Jill Ireland, a British actress who later appeared in some of his films, including "The Valachi Papers" and "Love and Bullets." She died in 1990 after a long battle with cancer.

Mr. Bronson is survived by his wife, Kim; three daughters, Suzanne, Katrina Holden-Bronson and Zulieka, all of Los Angeles; a son, Tony of Los Angeles; two stepsons, Paul and Valentine McCallum, of Los Angeles; and two grandchildren.