Charles Bronson Charles Bronson Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky; ; November 3, 1921 – August 30, 2003) was an American actor. He was often cast in the role of a police officer, gunfighter, or vigilante in revenge-oriented plot lines. He had long-term collaborations with film directors Michael Winner and J. Lee Thompson, and appeared in fifteen films alongside his second wife, Jill Ireland. Bronson was born Charles Dennis Buchinsky, the 11th of 15 children, in a Roman Catholic family of Lithuanian descent in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, in the coal region of the Allegheny Mountains north of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. His father, Valteris P.
Charles Gray (actor) at the family home until their deaths. On becoming a professional actor he had to change his name, as there was already an actor named Donald Gray. He chose Charles Gray partly because Charles was the name of his maternal grandfather, partly because he had a close friend named Charles, and partly because he thought it sounded nice. For his first appearance on Broadway, in the 1961 musical "Kean", he went under the name Oliver Gray. Charles Gray distinguished himself in theatrical roles, in the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, London, at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-Upon-Avon and at the