The glitz surrounding Hollywood actors may make it look like every star was born into fame. But this is certainly not always the case, and definitely wasn’t for the legendary Hollywood star, Charles Bronson.

Born in 1921 as Charles Dennis Buchinsky, Bronson had a difficult journey and childhood in particular, growing up in a coal mining town in Croyle Township, about 60 miles from Pittsburgh.

He experienced childhood alongside another 14 siblings, coming in at 9th out of the total 15. While everyone knows just how expensive a single child could be, just imagine the pressure when the family is dirt poor. This was exactly the case for Bronson.

Bronson and the massive family lived in a small, company-built shack just a few yards from the coal car tracks. The house was completely inadequate to house such a large family: it was so small, they had to take turns sleeping.

“There was no love in my house,” he said. “The only physical contact I had with my mother was when she took me between her knees to pull the lice out of my hair.”

Dire Beginnings

But it wasn’t just the Bronson family who had it bad: the entire town was a rather miserable and hopeless place, serving only company officials who wanted to facilitate the coal mining and maximize profits.

There was little nature, the drinking water was sub-par, and prospects were dark. It’s no surprise then that Bronson has described his childhood as lonely and unhappy.

Things got increasingly difficult around the time Bronson was a teenager and his father passed away. While he was already used to haggling for small change, he now had to quit school to support his family. Naturally, this could only mean one thing: getting a job as a coal miner.

Memories of this phase of his life haunted Bronson well into adulthood, with him never forgetting the backbreaking work or the powerful smell of coal in his nostrils. Bronson felt that he was living on his hands and knees, breathing black dust.

He has often also vividly recalled the many headaches that mining work gave him, and how his hands were always rough and dirty. Bronson has said that he felt he was born with a shovel in his mouth, not a spoon.

But above the physical impacts was an even more profound psychological one: his days working as a coal miner gave him a profound inferiority complex.

“During my years as a miner, I was just a kid, but I was convinced that I was the lowliest of all forms of man,” he said. 

In fact, according to Bronson, all of the coal miners in his town had the same complex: railroad and steelworkers were seen as the ‘elite’ while they were perceived as the lowliest form of man.

“Very few people know what it is like to live down there underneath the surface of the world, in that total blackness.”  

When he was finally drafted into the army, he was thrilled. He could at last escape his dark world and expect to be well-fed and well-dressed. It’s this period of his life that would ultimately open up the doors to Bronson becoming one of the most iconic names in Hollywood.

A Bright New Path

After serving in World War II, Bronson returned to the U.S. and began to study art before enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.