September 2, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 4, 1424

LOS ANGELES, Sept 1: Coal miner turned tough-guy actor Charles Bronson, a star of more than 60 films including the popular “Death Wish” series in which he played a one-man army, has died at the age of 81, a spokeswoman said on Sunday.

The craggy-faced Bronson died of pneumonia on Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, publicist Lori Jonas said.

The actor reportedly had Alzheimer’s disease and had been in hospital since suffering serious organ failure earlier this month.

Bronson was famed for his tough guy films, especially the “Death Wish” series in which he played Paul Kersey, who was pushed over the edge by a brutal assault on his family in the original “Death Wish” in 1974.

In that film, Kersey prowled New York and meted out vigilante justice to wrongdoers, drawing critical condemnation but enthusiastic support from audiences.

He first became a box-office draw in Europe with his role as a hired killer in Italian director Sergio Leone’s 1968 “spaghetti western”, “Once Upon a Time in the West” and in the 1968 French movie, “Adieu, l’Ami”.

A COAL MINER’S SON: Charles Bronson, whose original name was Charles Buchinski, was one of 15 children of a Lithuanian coal miner in Pennsylvania. He worked as a miner after graduating high school and it was only going into the army during World War Two that got him out of the mines. After the war he learned acting at the Pasadena Playhouse and his first film role was in 1950 playing a sailor in “You’re in the Navy Now,” starring Gary Cooper.

In Italy, where Bronson shot many of his movies, he was called “Il Brutto” — “The Ugly One.”

But his rugged appearance helped earn him applause in such films as “The Magnificent Seven” (1960), “The Great Escape” (1963) and “The Dirty Dozen” (1967).

He was once quoted as saying: “I guess I look like a rock quarry that someone has dynamited.”—Reuters/AFP

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