The Great Escape
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inQPUFRFlUvl I tilAtiBY CURT MINER The Great Escape \M< t^^V Burns stillremembers the time that he and his while Tom intended to be a prizefighter. They agreed to buddy, Charlie Buchinsky, bought a one-way train start in Philadelphia. Tomticket out of town. The year was 1946, and both For Burns, the train ride turned out to be a round trip. men had just returned from the service to their northern By the followingyear, he was back in town, though he Cambria County hometown of Ehrenfeld, a coal mine never went back to the mines (and retired in 1988 as a "patch" half-way between Johnstown and Ebensburg. Nei- Cambria County deputy sheriff.) On the other hand, ther man saw a future in the mines, where they'd worked Buchinsky, whose driving ambition for most of his early before the war; Charlie longed to be a lifeguard in Florida, years in "Scooptown" was to leave for good —so say his 100 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | FALL 1999 ILLUSTRATION BY WALL-TO-WALL STUDIOS biographers, anyway— made good on his plan. Along the After his father died, likely from black lung disease, way, he would leave behind his Slavic-sounding surname Bronson dutifully joined his brothers in the mines. Intent as well.In 1950s Hollywood, "Charles Bronson" just sound- on finishing high school, he reportedly worked the night ed more, well...more Hollywood. shift. The experience toughened Bronson and helped In real life, Charles Buchinsky epitomized the coal sculpt his physique, but he didn't find his birthright "hunky." He was, according to his biographers, born in particularly ennobling: "Ican remember being down that 1921, the 11th of 15 children of Walter Buchinsky, a mine, hacking away at the g-damn coal and weeping at Lithuanian immigrant, and Mary Valinsky, an American- the sheer hopelessness of everything." born Slav. At the time of the 1920 federal census, the Ultimately, the Army saved him. Drafted in 1943, he elder Buchinsky was a coal miner, as was nearly every served for three years, returning briefly to Ehrenfeld adult male in the square-mile of shacks that the Penn- before moving on to Philly, where he worked odd jobs and sylvania Coal and Coke Co. built and dubbed Ehren- attended art school at night on the G.I. Bill (and lifted feld. The 1928 Coal Field Directory reported roughly weights at a gym with Tom Burns). Then it was on to 600 miners worked at its No. 3 and No. 8 mines. Atlantic City, then New York, and finally, to California, Judging from the census, Ehrenfeld was a —typical where in 1950 he enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse to 1920s patch: lots of Eastern European surnames Sun- study acting. ofsky, —Andreko, Pulaski, even Yab- Separating the facts of Branson's lonski and lots of large house- coal patch past from the fiction is holds crammed into a small space. difficult. In 1974, a New York (Bronson is said to remember he Times reporter, unable to find and the other kids being "so corroborating evidence of Branson's jammed together we picked up each The onlyphysical contact run-ins with the law, attributed other's accent.") Like those around Ihad with my mother most of the stories to an imaginative them, the Buchinsky household was publicist. A littleembellishing sure- identified in the census by a cryptic was when she took me ly fortified his tough-guy creden- company number rather than a street between her knees to pull tials. ("The only physical contact I address, underscoring the sense of had with my mother was when she cell-block confinement. For his fa- the lice out o my hair." took me between her knees to pull ther, surely a hopeful immigrant the lice out of my hair," he was when he arrived in 1906, the mines quoted as saying. Another story, became a kind of death sentence. undoubtedly calculated to reinforce Bronson recalls how his father spent his hyper-heterosexual ity, has him the few hours he had at home— every losing his virginity at age 5.) night hacking up coal dust so violently at times that it But regardless of the details, Bronson is such a product seemed to shake the house. of a particular time and place in Western Pennsylvania By all accounts, Buchinsky was a willfuland somewhat history that, try as he might, he can't shake the shadow. feral youth. He would later maintain that his was a de- His unmistakable physical presence, an amalgamation of linquency born of economic deprivation. During one of the heredity and environment, likely got him into 1950s rare interviews in which he talked about his past, Bronson Hollywood, yet it also kept him apart. During the early regaled reporters with tales of knife-throwing, chicken- years of his career, Bronson-still carrying his birth name killing,and petty theft. As a young teenager, he graduated Buchinsky-was cast as the token Slavic character. In his from mischief to delinquency. During a summer workstint first Hollywood film, "You're in the Navy Now," (1951) on an onion farm in upstate New York, Bronson reportedly Bronson was cast as the generic "Wascylewski." Over the burglarized the farmer's house to recover back wages. He next several years, his characters all had a similar ethnic even claims in one of his biographies to have been flavor or an outright Pittsburgh connection: Angelo Kor- arrested for robbing the Ehrenfeld company store: "I used vac in "The People Against O'Hara"; "the Russian" in to walk in whenever I needed— to and steal something. I "Diplomatic Courier"; Igor in "House of Wax"; "Pittsburgh never took money, though just clothes and food. I fig- Phil" in "The Bloodhounds of Broadway"; and simply ured the company owed it to me." "Pittsburgh" in "Vera Cruz" (1954). 101 HO Long after he'd dropped his Slavic surname, Branson's movie, he knew all about living by his wits in the period looks consigned him to parts calling for a vaguely film's era (the 1930s). Bronson plays a street tough menacing, ethnic outsider. Among Hollywood types, the drifting toward New Orleans. During the filming of the actor's distinctive physiognomy — square jaw, deeply set freight train sequence, he reportedly refused the services vaguely Mongolian eyes, and thick age lines (even by his of a technical consultant hired to advise on the proper mid-30s) —earned him the nickname "The Face." In post- technique for boarding a moving train. modern talk, he was Hollywood's adaptable— Other. the late 1970s, according to a Bronson biography, Floating in and out of film genres war, gangster, the actor began toying with the idea of making a film spaghetti Western, prison, crime — he capably played about his Scooptown days. According to a New York Mexicans, Asians, Slavs, Native Americans, and others Times report, Branson's 36-room Bel Air mansion was outside the Anglo-American gene pool who, like himself, filled with his own paintings of Scooptown: "the shacks were also uncomfortable with English. on the hill, the men trooping wearily home from work, his the 1960s, he was landing roles in some—of the mother scrubbing coal dust from his father's back." But biggest male ensemble pictures of the decade "The Bronson never transferred the images to film. In 1986, Magnificent Seven," "The Dirty Dozen" (as Joseph Wlad- perhaps as a concession, he made "Act of Vengeance," islaw), "The Battle of the Bulge" (as Major Wolenski), and in which he plays fabled United Mine Workers reformer the "The Great Escape" (Danny Jock Yablonski (with Wilford Brim- Velinski). In that film, he plays a ley, of Quaker Oats fame, inscru- POW designated the camp's best tably cast as union boss Tony tunnel-digger because of his exper- Boyle). But by 1986, Bronson had ience as a coal miner; his char- Itis bracing to consider burned up whatever capital he had acter's name is a phonetic copy of in as a Hollywood Player on his "Death his mother's maiden name. just how closely hefits Wish" sequels and that, coupled All of these roles won Bronson with his cohort ofgraying with the soft market for industrial commercial success — he was con- union movies, relegated his one and sidered the world's No. 1 box office Western Pennsylvanians, only mining film to Tinsel Town's draw in 1972— but little critical right down to his reported slag heap. praise. His subsequent turn from Over his career, Charles Bronson historical/fantasy action flicks to hipsurgery lastjear, logged more than 90 movies and an contemporary urban dramas didn't impressive string of television cred- help matters. In 1974, Bronson re- its. Now, nearing 80, The Face is leased "Death Wish," in which he softening. Given our celluloid im- played a mildly liberal architect who ages of Bronson busting up street turned enraged vigilante after his family is brutalized by punks or burrowing past hapless Nazi prison guards, it is urban thugs (one played by West Homestead native Jeff bracing to consider just how closely he fits in with his Goldblum). Critics assailed the movie, calling it every- cohort of graying Western Pennsylvanians, right down to thing from "morally reprehensible" to "a streetside fascist his reported hip replacement surgery last year. If you pot-boiler."—Although he hadn't set out to make a —political close your eyes, it's not hard to imagine Bronson loafing statement only money, as he was known to note Bron- with his old freight train-hopping, coal-digging buddies son defended the film and its sequels from the phony at a local bar.