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Post by chaney on Apr 9, 2013 14:34:06 GMT -5
Thank you all. Haven't been here in a while.
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Post by chaney on Sept 14, 2011 9:40:06 GMT -5
De Toth was the director of HOUSE OF WAX, RIDING SHOTGUN, and CRIME WAVE. From the interview book "De Toth on De Toth" discussing HOUSE OF WAX and Charlie:
Interviewer: Was this Charles Bronson's first screen role?
De Toth: No. As Charles Buchinsky he had worked with me before. He was very talented, but too tense. It was a pleasure to watch him grow up.
Interviewer: He has a memorable face, and it would be better if he did not have to speak. There is nothing wrong with his voice, but somehow you feel that he has more of a quiet presence.
De Toth: He has a great presence, but he puts all the weight into his muscle-bound looks. That's why he didn't reach the peak that he was destined to reach. He is a big star in the particular crap that he does, which turns into gold because he is good at it. But I thought he had a much broader margin. He was more than what he was doing. No question!
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Post by chaney on Jun 29, 2011 9:25:11 GMT -5
Clint Walker is interviewed in "Shock Cinema" and is asked about Charlie. He mentions Charlie was very concerned about his height and said that was one of the reasons he was stand-offish with fans. He didn't want them to realize how short he was. Walker tried to tell Charlie that his height didn't matter, and brought up James Cagney as an example. He said fans, and Walker counted himself among them, considered Charlie 7 feet tall.
Walker says that Charlie only approved his casting in "The White Buffalo" if their scene together could be staged with Charlie standing and Walker, who was 6'6", sitting.
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Post by chaney on Jun 29, 2011 9:19:52 GMT -5
Barbara Eden from the TV series "I Dream of Jeannie" was married to Michael Ansara back in the 1960's. In her new book she mentions that Ansara and Charlie were good friends. She briefly recounts a Las Vegas show they all took in with Don Rickles on stage heckling audience members Ansara and Bronson.
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Post by chaney on Jun 22, 2011 23:06:26 GMT -5
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Post by chaney on Jun 15, 2011 9:13:59 GMT -5
Remember being surprised in Robert Relyea's book that early 60's Charlie seemed to be a bit of a beer-pounder. Maybe that's what we're noticing at times.
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Post by chaney on Jun 14, 2011 20:10:42 GMT -5
From the fall of 1967. Charlie plays Harge Talbot, an outlaw leader with a grudge against James Drury's Virginian. This is complicated by the fact that Charlie's wife is due with child. It's an ok episode with Charlie given several dimensions as the heavy.
Was kind of surprised in a couple of scenes by the fact that his face and eyes looked a little puffy. His body doesn't necessarily look any heavier. Has anyone else seen this episode? Wonder if he was hungover on one of the days of shooting.
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Post by chaney on Jun 3, 2011 20:39:59 GMT -5
Agree that's a good observation. Ford has done that to some extent. Recall that he's a helicopter pilot as a hobby and saved some people in a mountain rescue a few years back. That earns some credibility, but at the same time Ford is a victim of his own past. He avoided the draft in Vietnam and doesn't have a tough background from his early life. He wasn't involved in any sports or other activities that define young tough guys. Stallone was another guy who managed not to go to Vietnam, but then came to symbolize the super-soldier type with Rambo.
I think it's just accepted nowadays that today's actors don't have the tough backgrounds that their predecessors did. Guys from Charlie's era were defined by World War II and Korea, the Depression, and any number of tough manual labor. Now people like Brad Pitt carry off tough guy roles, but their work background involves standing in a chicken outfit by the side of the road for a food chain. That's not necessarily a knock on Brad Pitt. I actually like some of his work. It's just the way it is and accepted as such.
I think with today's instant media it's also much more difficult for an actor to get away with any kind of tough guy behavior. Back in the day guys like Lee Marvin and Robert Mitchum regularly got into bar fights and it was just par for the course. You rarely heard about it. Today someone like Russell Crowe has a temper tantrum and it's all over the news and he's being threatened with lawsuits.
There's probably a reason big stars like Harrison Ford tend to seclude themselves in mountain retreats where they don't encounter a ton of people all the time. That way they can live normal lives and not be expected to be larger than life every minute of every day.
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Post by chaney on Jun 3, 2011 20:29:05 GMT -5
Not necessarily the best way of acting, especially incongruous with stage-training. Some actors are fantastic with dialog and can really carry a scene to a peak. Others can play to the camera or handle props with precision and skill (McQueen and Lee Marvin handling weapons comes to mind). Whatever creates interest on screen and captures the audience's attention. McQueen was expert at being silent on screen and projecting a mood or an aura. He wasn't comfortable with dialog and would pare it down, knowing what he was capable of achieving with a soulful nod or glance.
One of the best actors I've ever seen at "thinking" on screen is Warren Oates. Sometimes that guy could carry long stretches of screen time with nothing more than a squint of his eyes or a furrowing of his brow. Definitely something that is probably more inherent in a personality or actor's background than something that can be taught.
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Post by chaney on May 26, 2011 22:52:31 GMT -5
Recently got to watch some of these old episodes again with Charlie. He's only in about half of the episodes, appearing midway through the series as the "special guest star". They're watchable enough, but not surprised the series lasted only a single season. Charlie is appropriately stoic as Linc.
Would sure be interested in a Kurt Russell autobiography. As a child actor who worked on a wide variety of TV shows, he encountered many classic actors and actresses. Bet he has more than a few Charlie anecdotes of interest on this forum.
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Post by chaney on Apr 15, 2011 19:57:02 GMT -5
Great interview. Looking forward to getting that book. Lee Marvin's first wife has also written a book and I've got both of them in my Amazon shopping cart. Thanks for linking this.
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Post by chaney on Mar 31, 2011 8:00:21 GMT -5
I think the fighter receives money but the fight isn't sanctioned by any governing body. Recall reading Robert Mitchum bios about his "tanktown" fights in mining towns. The fight happens, money is exchanged from the gate, but it never goes into any official record book.
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Post by chaney on Mar 30, 2011 17:56:05 GMT -5
In his autobiography 'How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime", Roger Corman mentions Charlie and the making of MACHINE GUN KELLY. Here's the excerpt with Corman talking about how the character Kelly folded up in the climax:
On the set, Bronson himself showed far more swagger than weakness, though I got on well with him. During one break Charlie and I started sparring off to the side. I thought, I have no idea how I even got into something like this with a guy as massive as Charlie Bronson. I held up one hand and he pounded it with a left, knocked it right back. My hand went back up, he came in again and pounded it again. Then he punched at least twenty lefts and rights straight into my stomach - not hard shots, just strong enough to let me feel his power. I said to him, "Okay, Charlie, that's great, I think I'm going to go over there and work on the script now." That's when he mentioned that he had come out of the Pennsylvania coal mines and been a successful semipro boxer.
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Post by chaney on Mar 13, 2011 10:13:34 GMT -5
Was looking through an old notebook and came across something I had jotted down a few years back after reading an interview with stuntman Bill Catching. He was talking about working on GUNS FOR SAN SEBASTIAN and noted that Charlie and Jill sat off by themselves playing cards between takes. They were at least 40 feet from any of the other cast and crew. Catching said the funny thing was that every day of filming Charlie and Jill moved their chairs a few feet closer until by the end of filming they were finally sitting with everyone else.
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Post by chaney on Jan 31, 2011 10:28:40 GMT -5
I have the Jerry Vermilye book THE FILMS OF CHARLES BRONSON and there is a still from YOU CAN'T WIN 'EM ALL where a shirtless Charlie is holding a gun and grabbing Tony Curtis. Always thought Charlie's right nipple/chest looked kind of odd in that photo but when seeing the movie again in the past year didn't pay attention to it. Figured the still was just an odd angle or movement that drew attention to something that wasn't noticeable in "real time".
So, was Charlie taking or trying steroids during this period? Who knows. Charlie was never one to immerse himself in the gym culture. Most of his workouts were said to be freehand or done in his own backyard with his homemade weights and functional equipment.
We've often discussed on this forum how muscular Charlie was in the 1950's before the emergence of steroids and how fit he remained on screen for over 30 years. Don't remember ever thinking in movies like HARD TIMES where he's shirtless throughout (and in his early 50's) that his body showed evidence of roids.
It's possible that while in Europe during the late 60's Charlie might have been training in gyms and been given "something" to try by the locals. Perhaps Charlie did a cycle or two, muttered something under his breath about "bitch tits", and discontinued the use. Of course, evidence of any experimentation may show up on screen for knowledgeable eyes to find.
Can't dispute though that Charlie's physique was a combination of years of dedicated exercise and strict dieting. He wasn't one of these actors who got huge and ripped for a single film and then immediately lost that build. Charlie was overwhelmingly ripped and natural for decades.
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