Charles Bronson dead at 81

I was reading one of the stories this weekend and came across the genesis for his acting career - he was working in the coal mines with his father and brothers and saw that Actors made more money, so he got a small part in a stage production because he figured that that's where the money was. Hollywood wasn't making many films when he was young, so he ended up working in Europe. He became a legend over there but he didn't make it back over to America until he was 50.

I've seen tough-guy actor Charles Bronson in a number of roles (including The Dirty Dozen and The Magnificent Seven) but my favorite Bronson role was as Harmonica from Sergio Leone's sprawling spagetti western film, Once Upon a Time in the West.

I was lucky enough to see this on the big screen for a festival in Santa Fe. Wow.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064116/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-1015561/reviews.php?critic=columns&sortby=default&page=1&rid=14046
[b]Once Upon a Time in the West[/b]

Directed By: Sergio Leone
Starring: Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Jack Elam, Woody Strode, Lionel Stander, Keenan Wynn
(PG, 165 min.)

[i]Leone’s elegiac masterpiece is a classic Western tale about railroads, land grabs, and the entrepreneurial spirit. Ennio Morricone’s haunting score befits the movie’s operatic scope. An additional treat is seeing Hollywood good guy Henry Fonda playing one of the nastiest curs in the West. Once Upon a Time in the West is one of the great films in cinema history.[/i]