"I am not a Casper Milquetoast," Bronson told The Washington Post in 1985, recalling the time he was visiting Rome and felt someone stick a gun in his side. "A guy in broken English asked me for money. I said, 'You give ME money.' He turned around and walked away."
Bill Murray said he based his character in Lost in Translation (2003) on Bronson.
Tennessee Williams wanted him to play the general in his play "The Red Devil Battery Sign" in 1975, but he wasn't interested.
Sergio Leone once called him "the greatest actor I ever worked with". Leone had wanted Bronson for all three of what became known as the "Man with No Name" trilogy, but Bronson turned him down each time.
Actor Dick Van Dyke received a lemon cake every Christmas from Bronson, who lived nearby in Malibu for 16 years
Advertised Mandom hair oil.
Appeared with Steve McQueen and James Coburn in two films, both of which were directed by John Sturges: The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963).
Awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday, December 10, 1980. Bronson and wife Jill Ireland attended the ceremony.
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 48-50. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.
Called West Windsor, Vermont his home for more than three decades (Bronson Farm), and was buried in nearby Brownsville Cemetery, near the foot of Mt. Ascutney.
Capable of essaying a variety of types, from Russian to American Indian, from homicidal villain to tight-lipped hero, Bronson suddenly became a star at the age of 50. Following the success of Death Wish (1974) he repeated, with little variation, his role as a vengeful urban vigilante.
Changed his stage name in the early 1950s in the midst of the McCarthy "Red Scare" at the suggestion of his agent, who was fearful that his last name (Buchinsky) would damage his career.
Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2000 after suffering ill health for the previous two years.
Director John Huston once summed him up as "a grenade with the pin pulled"
From a Lithuanian family, he grew up in a western Pennsylvania coal-mining town. Like all the men in his family, he worked in the mines, but hated it and used a variety of means to escape it (including the military and, eventually, acting). His expertise with tunneling and working underground turned out to be quite helpful when making The Great Escape (1963) in the role of "Tunnel King" Velinski. However, even though the "tunnel" he was working in was a cutaway set, he could only stay in it for a few minutes at a time before he had to get up and leave. As a boy working in the mines, he was caught in a cave-in and almost died before he was finally rescued. Ever since that time he had had a deathly fear of enclosed spaces.
Growing up without much money for newer clothes, as a boy he often wore his older sister's hand-me-downs.
Had hip replacement surgery in August 1998.
He and wife Jill Ireland adopted Katrina Holden Bronson after her mother Hilary Holden died in 1983.
He grew privately frustrated by the declining quality and range of roles over his career, being pigeonholed as a violent vigilante after the commercial success of Death Wish (1974). His own favorite of his "vigilante" movies was Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) (aka Once Upon a Time in the West).
He had two children with his first wife, Tony and Suzanne. He then married Jill Ireland, who had two sons with her first husband, David McCallum. One adopted son (Jason) died of an accidental drug overdose in 1989. He and Ireland had a daughter named Zuleika.